Taiwan Is Country of Origin for Aegis Multimedia’s DisplayPort Adapter, CBP Says
CBP has ruled that Taiwan is the country of origin for Aegis Multimedia’s DisplayPort male to female adapter, for government procurement purposes, according to a June 27 final determination.
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Taiwan is also where Aegis’ printed circuit board assembly (PCBA) is manufactured. Aegis sought a country-of-origin determination from CBP so that the adapter could a receive a waiver from certain “Buy American” restrictions.
The deadline for parties seeking a judicial review of the determination is Aug. 1.
The DisplayPort male to female adapter is an eight-inch-long video converter used to connect a desktop or laptop computer with a monitor or television that is video graphics array-compliant. The adapter converts signals transmitted between the computer and the monitor, according to the notice.
Manufacturing the adapter takes place in two phases: PCBA production in Taiwan, followed by final assembly in China.
Since the manufacturing performed in Taiwan is more complex than the manufacturing that occurs in China, CBP determined that the adapter’s country of origin is Taiwan.
“We find that the various components are substantially transformed when assembled into the PCBA in Taiwan,” CBP said, noting that electronic components added to the raw printed circuit board to create the PCBA facilitate the signals between a computer and a monitor.
But the processing in China, which consists of wire cutting, stamping, fitting, and visual inspection, is not sufficiently complex and meaningful to result in a substantial transformation, CBP said. Instead, as described above, the components added in China consist of casing and wires used to facilitate the functions performed by the PCBA, the agency continued.