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

New Delhi : A survey has found that around 49 per cent 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 not be transferred to the companies' China headquarters.

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

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

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

"Overall, it appears that 49 per cent 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 China headquarters of the company," the LocalCircles report said.

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

However, 27 per cent said no action should be taken on such companies but the Chinese Directors must resign and just 11 per cent 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 per cent businesses said that it will have an extremely negative impact while 20 per cent said it will have a somewhat negative effect.

"Ten per cent said it will have an extremely positive effect while 14 per cent said it will have a somewhat positive effect. Forty-two per cent said it will have no impact on their business. "This shows that small businesses are split on whether India should cut ties with China or not as 27 per cent are saying it will have negative impact while 24 per cent are saying it will have a positive impact," the report added.