For the case companies, there were no significant costs of overseas phone calls and faxes at the set up stage of China sourcing projects. All the case companies either visited the supplier in China, or used emails for communication. In the survey companies, this cost varied from 0-17 per cent of the total set up cost. If these results are compared with the travel costs, it can be seen that several of the survey companies chose to do much business by phone calls and faxes, rather than visiting China.