KDD Corp. and Singapore Telecom reached an agreement to form a strategic partnership that includes a joint venture for corporate data communications services and the cross-holding of shares, top officials of the two major telecom carriers in Asia announced on Wednesday.

The two carriers will set up a joint venture to offer data communications services to multinational corporate users based on the common asynchronous transfer platform mode in April 2000, the executives said.

"After many years of working together, we have decided to take our mutual relationship a level higher by forging a strategic partnership," said Lee Hsien Yang, president of SingTel, through a televised press conference from Singapore.