Press Room December 2011

Small businesses play a critical role in African American communities across the United States—spurring investment, creating jobs, and meeting community needs. Since the beginning of the Obama Administration, the Minority Business Development Agency (MBDA), part of the Department of Commerce, created nearly 11,000 new jobs and saved tens of thousands of existing jobs while helping minority-owned firms obtain nearly $7 billion in contracts and capital. Just last year, minority-owned businesses overall created $1 trillion in economic output and 5.8 million jobs directly - View data from the Minority-Owned Business Growth & Global Reach

Winning the future in the global economy requires a government that efficiently allocates scarce resources to maximize efficiency and effectiveness so that it can best support American competitiveness, innovation, and job growth.

To support economic growth and job expansion, the federal government must make it easier for businesses to access the full range of government information, programs and services they need to compete globally, without having to navigate their way through an overwhelming bureaucracy.

2011 proved to be another highly productive year for Commerce's Minority Business Development Agency (MBDA)—the only federal agency tasked to promote the growth and global competitiveness of the minority business community. MBDA is a leader in strengthening the economy and improving the lives of all Americans. We support job growth and economic expansion through a network of MBDA business centers, collaboration with federal, state and local government agencies, and strategic partnerships. The U.S. economy continues to benefit from a strong minority business sector as illustrated by our big numbers below.

BOSTON — Minority business owners in Massachusetts are set to benefit from a new resource designed to help them gain access to contracts, capital and markets.

The U.S. Commerce Department’s Minority Business Development Agency is scheduled to formally open its new business center in Boston on Tuesday to help minority businesses expand.

The agency says minority businesses accounted for nine percent of all firms located in Massachusetts in 2002, the latest year for which data is available.

The minority accounted for nearly 20 percent of the state population in 2010.

A new electronic application that quickly and efficiently finds loans, grants, and other useful small business resources, and its developer Somesh Kumar of Freemont, Calif., won first prize and $5,000 in a nationwide competition sponsored by the U.S. Small Business Administration. The competition and resulting seven “apps” are meant to put new and useful web tools at the fingertips of growing entrepreneurs.

As a result of SBA’s “Apps for Entrepreneurs Challenge,” a competition for tech-savvy developers to build new and useful web tools for small businesses, entrepreneurs can reach for their smartphone or tablet and search federal, state and local databases for vital information by using one of seven award-winning apps.