End of Tariff May Add Jobs in U.S. : Computers: Duties on color screens sent some manufacturers overseas. Already, Apple plans some repatriation.
The Commerce Department’s decision to lift a tariff on imported color computer screens represents good news and potential jobs to makers of portable computers, industry officials said Wednesday.
The decision, announced late Monday, could have the biggest effect on Orange County’s Toshiba America Information Systems Inc., which makes some of its portable computers in Irvine. AST Research Inc. and Advanced Logic Research Inc., also in Irvine, could benefit as well.
“Two years ago, I said that Commerce fired a shot at the Japanese display industry and hit the U.S. computer industry instead,” said Jack Roberts, graphics and display analyst at Dataquest Inc., a market research company in San Jose. “I don’t think there are any losers in this decision to eliminate the tariff.”
The Commerce Department in 1991 responded to American screen makers’ complaints that foreign companies were dumping active-matrix color, flat panel displays here, or selling them below market prices. The federal agency imposed a 63% tariff on active-matrix, flatpanel screens that were shipped as separate parts to be assembled in the United States.
The agency did not impose tariffs, however, on screens brought into the country as parts of assembled computers. Thus, many computer makers moved their manufacturing of screens and portable computers out of the country. That reaction prompted protests that jobs in the United States would be lost.
As a result of the tariff decision, Apple Computer Inc. said Wednesday that it will shift some production on two of its color Powerbook portable computer models from Ireland and Canada to a plant in Colorado. And Compaq Computer Corp. in Houston said it welcomes the flexibility that elimination of the tariff brings.
Toshiba America, the U.S. subsidiary of Tokyo-based Toshiba Corp., was one of the companies that moved production offshore. It announced after the imposition of the tariffs that it would transfer its active-matrix assembly from Irvine to Japan.
At the time, active-matrix color screens accounted for only a small portion of that company’s sales. But during 1992, sales of the screens increased and their prices fell, making color portable computers in general more affordable. Many models now sell for less than $3,000.
Last year, nearly half the computers Toshiba sold were color, either active-matrix or the lower-quality passive-matrix screens. Active-matrix color screens represented about 12% of the overall portable screen market last year.
A small number of U.S. display makers at first welcomed the tariff, but later changed their position. And employees at Toshiba and other large computer companies, concerned that the levy was costing Americans jobs, began lobbying for lifting the tariff.
Though the number of screen manufacturers in the United States has dwindled, the lifting of the tariff at least gives Toshiba and other manufacturers the option of assembling their color-screen computers here.
Advanced Logic Research used screens made in Singapore for its portable computer line, which represents less than 5% of its personal computer sales. Dave Kirkey, ALR’s vice president of worldwide marketing, applauded the elimination of the tariffs but said it is unlikely to affect manufacturing plans.
