MED Week: Asian American Businesses Boost U.S. Economy

By Mary Tablante

The growing economic clout of Asian Americans extends beyond our role as consumers. We are increasingly becom­ing business owners. In fact, one in four minority businesses is owned by an Asian American, according to the U.S. Depart­ment of Commerce’s Minority Business Development Agency. And those busi­nesses are unusually successful, produc­ing more than fifty percent of the gross receipts created by all minority firms in the United States. One more figure: Over half of minority firms which hire employ­ees are owned by Asian-Americans.

Minority-owned firms in the U.S. have a combined economic output of $1 tril­lion, and are twice as likely to export goods than non-minority firms. That’s an important factor prompting President Obama’s declaration of Minority Enter­prise Development Week in December. “At the core of who we are as a Nation is a fundamental belief: that no matter who you are, no matter what you look like, no matter where you come from, if you have an idea and a willingness to work hard, you can succeed,” the president wrote in a proclamation.

In conjunction with that, the U.S. De­partment of Commerce Minority Busi­ness Development Agency (MBDA) staged the 30^th Anniversary National Mi­nority Enterprise Development Week Conference, an event held December 5 and 6 in Washington, D.C. and attend­ed by over one thousand minority busi­ness owners. The purpose of MBDA is to provide access to capital, consulting, contracts and markets for minority en­trepreneurs looking to expand their busi­nesses locally and overseas.

The event featured business-to-busi­ness networking and global network­ing with embassy officials from Asia, Africa, Latin America and the Middle East. The conference theme was “Job Creation in America: Build it Here—Sell it Everywhere!”

Acting Secretary for the U.S. De­partment of Commerce Rebecca Blank opened the conference by emphasizing job creation, as well as the importance of American-made products. “As our econ­omy continues to grow, the president and I want to make sure that businesses like yours will continue to add to the nearly 5.5 million new jobs created over the past 32 months,” Blank said. Blank added that the United States is on track to exceed $2.1 trillion in U.S. exports. She said the government plans to build on the 1.2 bil­lion export-supported jobs that were add­ed between 2009 and 2011.

My Lan Tran, executive director of the Virginia Asian Chamber of Commerce, attended the conference to learn what the government is doing to create jobs, hop­ing to apply what she learned to her work supporting small Asian-American firms.

“The mission of our organization is to empower more Asian-American small businesses, [and] to reach out to the main­stream and gain access to business oppor­tunities, solutions and information,” Tran said. Tran added she was encouraged to see the Department of Commerce mak­ing an effort to define diversity, but she would like to see more outreach to help minority-owned businesses succeed.

“America still has a long way to­ward truly reaching out to all the diverse groups,” she said. “Asian-Americans [are] a smaller but fast-growing group of people and businesses; we bring the highest income and job creation among all minority groups.”

MBDA surveys business owners ev­ery five years, the last time in 2007. The figures for that year show that Asian-American-owned firms pumped $506 billion into the U.S. economy and cre­ated 2.6 million jobs. Between 2002 and 2007, Asian-American-owned firms also outpaced the growth of non-minor­ity firms in gross receipts, employment and number of firms.

David Hinson, the national direc­tor of MBDA addressed the conference on strengthening the economic founda­tion, and reflected on the past 30 years of MBDA. He said minority business­es have grown in number from 743,000 companies in 1982 to 5.8 million com­panies today.

MBDA honored and celebrated suc­cessful entrepreneurs and businesses, including Alkha Dhillon, the founder and CEO of Technalink, which is based in McLean, Va. Dhillon was recognized as one of the leading female CEOs in the D.C. area, focusing on advancing future generations in STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathemat­ics) careers.