49% Indians want Chinese firms to sell goods, with data security  

A survey has found that around 49% of its respondents feel that Chinese companies should be allowed to sell products in India but they want their data to be placed in India and should not be transferred to the companies' China headquarters.

The Local Circles survey showed that 35 % people said such sales should be completely barred while 14 % said they should only be allowed to sell Made in India products.

Around 25 % said such companies should only be allowed to sell Made in India products if no data sharing is taking place with China and 20 % said all product sales should be allowed for all products if no data sharing is taking place with China.

Around 4 % said all products sales should be allowed if no data sharing with China is taking place and only 2 % said sales should be allowed as is.

"Overall, it appears that 49 % believe that if Chinese multinationals are to sell products in India, the personal as well as aggregate data of Indian customers must reside in India and not go abroad to the Chinahead quarters of the company," the LocalCircles report said.

On whether any actions should be taken against Indian companies with Chinese investment, 30% respondents said action should be taken only if the Chinese ownership is 10 % of higher, while 29 % said action should be taken on companies with any Chinese ownership.

However, 27 % said no action should be taken on such companies but the Chinese Directors must resign and just 11% said that no action should be taken against any such company.

Further, over 3,000 Indian small businesses were asked during the survey if India cuts economic ties with China, what will be the impact on their business in the short term and 7 % businesses said that it will have an extremely negative impact while 20% said it will have a somewhat negative effect.

"Ten per cent said it will have an extremely positive effect while 14% said it will have a somewhat positive effect. Forty-two per cent said it will have no impact on their business," it said.

"This shows that small businesses are split on whether India should cut ties with China or not as 27 % are saying it will have negative impact while 24 % are saying it will have a positive impact," said the report.