Washington: Although far behind China, India figures among the 10 most attractive destinations for foreign investment, according to a new survey.

India jumps to sixth place from 15th in 2002, said the survey by leading consulting firm A T Kearney Inc.

Other surprises in this year's survey, besides India, has Poland, Russia and Brazil replacing France, Italy, Canada and Australia in the top 10.

But China remains way ahead, outsmarting even the US for the second year in a row. Beijing is expected to attract $ 57 billion in foreign investment this year against $ 52.7 billion in 2002.

Because of the rush to China, Asia is likely to overtake Europe as an investment destination for the first time, the survey said pointing out that Thailand, South Korea and Vietnam all moved up in Kearney's rankings this year.

The survey, says 'The Wall Street Journal', has emerged as an indicator of the countries the world's biggest companies feel confident about for making cross-border investments.

AT Kearney said manufacturing investors rank India among the top six most preferred investment locations and nearly a third are more optimistic on the Indian market.

Services sector investors ranked India as the fourth most attractive this year, up from the 14th place in 2002, it said adding as a leading offshore location India received investments from GE Capital, American Express, Citibank, Conseco, British Airways, Dell Computers and Reuters.

This FDI resulted in the development of call centres, back office support and facilities to handle knowledge-intensive activities.

However, FDI remains significantly lower than China and Brazil, it noted. Investors still face a highly bureaucratic business climate as well as ceilings on foreign ownership in India.

"As a result, many firms simply outsource by hiring Indian firms to manage business processes without making direct investments," AT Kearney said.

Recent delays in tax reforms, protests against privatisation of state-owned industries and the slowdown in privatisation could limit India's ability to transform offshore attraction into significantly larger FDI inflows.

PTI