Toshiba to Move Production of Popular Laptops to Irvine

Toshiba America Inc. said Monday that it will begin production of its popular laptop computers in Irvine next month, making it one of the first Japanese companies affected by the Reagan Administration’s 6-week-old trade sanctions to move production of its targeted goods onshore.

Daniel Crane, Toshiba America’s marketing vice president, told The Times that the decision to begin production in the United States rather than continue importing the computers from Japan had been under consideration for more than a year, largely because of the ongoing slide of the U.S. dollar against the Japanese yen.

However, he said that when President Reagan announced in March that he would impose sanctions on certain Japanese imports, which resulted in 100% tariffs on Toshiba’s imported laptop computers, the company decided to accelerate its plans to open a U.S. computer manufacturing plant.

“The sanctions spurred us to move more quickly,” Crane said. “We want to show our intent to comply with the spirit as well as the letter of the sanctions by bringing jobs and trade to the United States.”

Crane said Toshiba will initially hire about 40 workers at its Irvine facility to handle early stages of production. The Irvine plant, which also makes Toshiba office copying machines and telecommunications equipment, currently has about 500 employees.

At the height of computer production, Crane said, the company hopes to manufacture all of its laptops for the U.S. market at the Irvine facility.

Crane was unable to say how many employees might ultimately be added in Irvine or when computer production would reach its peak. The computers, among the most popular of the laptop models sold in the United States because of their speed and storage capacity, range in price from $2,000 to $4,000. Until the trade sanctions became effective in April, Crane said, Toshiba had been selling a total of about 10,000 of its popular T-3100 and T-1100 systems per month. When the sanctions became effective, the company said it had a two-month inventory in stores and distribution channels.

Toshiba becomes the second Japanese laptop maker since April to announce plans to make its products in the United States. Two weeks ago, NEC Home Electronics, the Chicago-area subsidiary of NEC Corp., said it would build its Multispeed laptop model in Georgia. Like Toshiba, NEC attributed the decision to currency exchange rates and its accelerated timing to the trade sanctions.

The timing of both Toshiba’s and NEC’s decisions coincides with consideration by U.S. trade officials in Washington of dropping the sanctions within the next few months.

Officials in the U.S. Trade Representative’s office said the sanctions, which were imposed to punish Japan for allegedly breaking a semiconductor trade agreement, have largely served their purpose of forcing the Japanese to abide by the accord.

“We welcome the additional investment in the United States, and we’re glad to see more jobs created here,” a spokesman for U.S. Trade Representative Clayton K. Yeutter said. “But we didn’t expect this reaction (of opening new production plants), and we don’t take credit for it.”