Mumbai, May 7: Delhi-NCR has emerged as the most preferred office space destination globally for Chinese firms planning to expand their foreign presence, with 516,667 sq ft leased between 2015 and 2017, a report said.

Mumbai is the second best Indian city for Chinese firms, garnering about 85,537 sq ft of office leasing between 2015 and 2017, said the study by property consultancy JLL.

"Chinese companies have been making their presence felt in Asia and have set up offices in major markets including India. Even though, leasing is still largely driven by the US and EU based companies in India, Chinese companies are fast setting up base to take advantage of the market size and the accelerated growth of the economy," said Ramesh Nair, chief executive officer and country head, JLL India.

He further said a diverse market like India provides global corporations both a centre of excellence as well as a promising audience for their products.

According to Nair, several Chinese firms have expanded their footprint in India in recent times including Vivo, Oppo, Alibaba, ZTE, Huawei and Xiaomi.

"Telecom major Vivo has taken up space of more than 6 lakh sq ft, while Oppo has occupied about a lakh sq ft, both during 2014-17 in NCR," he said.

In Mumbai as well, players like ZTE, Alibaba and Bank of China together have absorbed office space of about 1 lakh sq ft during 2015-17, Nair said.

Madrid came a close second to Delhi-NCR as the most preferred office space destination for Chinese companies, followed by Bangkok, Munich and Kuala Lumpur at the third, fourth and fifth spots, as per the report.