France Telecom SA (FTE) is in exclusive talks with ZTE Corp. of China to purchase a majority stake in Congo China Telecom, the African country’s fourth-largest mobile-phone company.

France Telecom could later purchase the 49 percent of the operator owned by the Congolese government as part of a call for bids, in addition to ZTE’s 51 percent stake, said Beatrice Mandine, a France Telecom spokeswoman. Both transactions combined could represent an investment of about 300 million euros ($425 million), with an exact valuation hard to determine because the government tender hasn’t been completed, according to a person familiar with the situation.

Chief Executive Officer Stephane Richard is re-orienting his country’s largest telecom company toward Africa and the Middle East as growth slows in European markets. Paris-based France Telecom agreed to pay $245 million for a 20 percent stake in Iraq’s Korek Telecom in March, and last year bought 40 percent of Morocco’s Meditel for 640 million euros.

A message left for ZTE’s outside spokesman in Paris outside of regular business hours wasn’t immediately returned.

With 65 million inhabitants and a mobile penetration rate of just 17 percent, the Congo is one of Africa’s largest -- and least developed -- countries. Paris-based France Telecom already operates in African states including Ivory Coast, Kenya, and Cameroon.

France Telecom’s emerging-market assets are taking on a larger share of revenue as economic growth in those markets outpaces that of Europe. Sales in the Middle East and Africa, excluding Egypt, climbed 5.8 percent in the first quarter.

Revenue from France, which contributed to half of the group’s total, fell 2.6 percent to 5.6 billion euros. The company last year set a target of doubling its overall emerging- market revenue by 2015, from about 3.3 billion euros in 2009.