Indian companies, in the long term, want to use a base in China to enter the Association of South-East Asian Nations markets, a Confederation of Indian Industry survey has found.

The CII said in a statement issued on Saturday that the survey also found that the focus of the Indo-Chinese business relationship had shifted from "trading" to "manufacturing". Within manufacturing, the approach is to set up joint venture companies.

One of the prime reasons for entering China was to tap the large domestic market along with its fully developed supply and demand chains.

The last one year had seen a substantial increase in Indian companies entering China, reflecting the growing interest of Indian companies in doing business with China, the survey said. The survey covered the stainless steel, information technology and banking sectors.

CII said that IT was the main player in the services sector, with huge potential for further development.

Other sectors in the services sector include tourism and hotel industry, health care and educational services for technical education.

CII found that China is different from most other countries in many ways. The Chinese government welcomed foreign direct investment and did not seek too much documents for setting up joint ventures.

The Chinese provinces also enjoyed high level of decentralisation in terms of attracting FDI, with most provinces not requiring a central government clearance when the FDI amount was not very high, the chamber said.

The survey said that approvals for obtaining licenses for setting up shop or even trade came fast. Most companies got their approvals under six months and over 60 per cent of the companies got their work done in less than six months, and the remaining in under one year.

The survey, however, also brought out some areas of concern including language problems, red tapism, lack of right talent for all jobs and lack of proper protection for intellectual property.