8.
results than have been achieved in the past, more particularly if
this could be presented as a special initiative which would require
suitable high-level treatment at the British end.
Agents
11.
It is a common complaint by Hong Kong manufacturers that
agents for British machinery are not as thrusting as those employed
by the Japanese or Germans. This is true in some cases, but by no
means all. In the final analysis, agents are as bad as their principals
allow them to be; and, while it is difficult to generalise, British
companies tend not to be as tough with their agents as their
competitors, although, as noted earlier, there are signs that this
is changing.
12. There is little doubt that a British company that can afford
to establish its own representative in Hong Kong, either on his own
or on a joint-venture basis, to deal exclusively with that company's
product, is going to do more business than through an agent handling
a large number of products. But it is up to the commercial judgement
of individual companies to decide whether the actual or potential
market for their product justifies the initial cost and subsequent
overheads of establishing their own office in Hong Kong. They are
likely to resent being told how to do their business; and no amount
of pious exhortation is a substitute for the financial realities of
life. Hopefully, the present economic strategy in Britain will force
more and more companies to look seriously at the possibility of
establishing their own representative in places like Hong Kong, if
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