INTERNATIONAL TRADE

Heading East: Funai U.S.A. Corp. has shut down its audio-equipment assembly plant in Fullerton and moved it to Southeast Asia, laying off 75 people.

This is the first retreat for Funai since it started operating in this country in the mid-1970s. Funai makes television sets, videocassette recorders, facsimile machines, telephones and other consumer electronics products.

Funai officials said the company’s six-employee Fullerton sales office will close by the end of this month, adding that the company will retain a sales and distribution center of 25 people at its U.S. headquarters in Teterboro, N.J.

“We’re consolidating and downsizing our U.S. operations, but we’re not leaving the U.S. market,” said an executive who asked not to be identified.

Funai’s troubles started last year when the slow U.S. economy cut consumer spending on electronics products. It stopped assembling TV sets in Fullerton late last year and concentrated on audio equipment.

Funai is among a group of small and medium-sized electronics manufacturers from Japan that set up operations in Southern California in the hot economic climate of the late 1970s and early 1980s. Like Funai, some of the other small Japanese electronics companies have been shutting down or scaling back their U.S. operations. This includes Shintom West Corp. of America and Crown U.S.A. Inc., both of Torrance.