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COMMERCIAL AND ECONOMIC WORK (Con tà)
as possible the following proposals:
2.
b.
c.
d.
The DS 6, Mr Morrison, should delegate at least a pro- portion of his mission work to the DS 7E, Mr Orr. This would enable Mr Morrison to do some projects work, with sufficient overlap to help him to cover the STC's absence on leave next year.
The Trade Commissioner (China Trade), Mr Reeve, should devote extra time to Hong Kong project work. There may in fact be no problem about this as a number of projects are coming up which have a relationship with the CPR.
The DS 7E, Mr Orr, should hand a part of his commodity work to Mr Leung. This would be the simplest solution; another would be that there should be some general re- shuffling of responsibilities between Mr Orr and the 2 LE IS. In any event the object would be to release Mr Orr in order to do the mission work now assigned to him.
Mr Orr and the LE Is should shift as much routine work as possible down to the Commercial Assistants who have, we believe, spare capacity. In particular, Mr Orr should get a Commercial Assistant to plan his visiting programme and make the appointments.
The Post may also like to consider whether there is scope for cutting down the amount of work done for each mission. Though we found it hard to put our finger on anything specific, we got the impression the Post had a slight tendency to give missions Rolls-Royce treatment. We leave this to the Post; they are rightly proud of the reputation they have built up for the efficient reception of missions.
CONCLUSION
23.
With the heavy workload on projects which can be predicted for the rest of this year, it would be desirable if an officer could be landed on the doorstep at once to help the STC. the other hand, we recognise that the Department would find it
On impossible to post anyone at this speed. We also believe that whoever he was he would be of no real help to the Trade Commission much before the time when the volume of projects work will have peaked. By the middle of 1979 such an officer might find himself seriously under-employed.
Meanwhile, our
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