starting an export business in China

Hi I live in China and I just contacted a leather belt factory close by
They said that I can represent them as an agent and the minimum order for their belts is 1000 belts .

My question is being an agent and middle man can I hire a sales rep to find customers and what is the commission for a sales rep ? Then I get my cut the sales rep gets his cut and the factory gets the rest can I do business in this fashion ?

As the middleman it doesn't make sense for you to hire another middleman. Try acting as a wholesaler and exporting the leather belts instead.

I would assume reps and agents earn small cuts from deals, so the cut to the sales rep would just be taken out of yours. Otherwise, the price of the leather belts will become too high and the factory will probably be priced-out of a product that can be substituted easily by other leather belts, which is why they may disagree with your idea of being an agent and then having reps too.