USHCC To Address Lack Of Federal Procurement Opportunities For Hispanic Businesses.

The United States Hispanic Chamber of Commerce (USHCC) will announce a new outreach effort to boost federal contracting opportunities for Hispanic-owned businesses at the 14th Annual Legislative Conference on March 24-25, 2004 at the Capital Hilton Hotel in Washington, D.C. The effort will be showcased during a briefing called “Federal Sector Procurement Council: Expanding Opportunities to Hispanic Business” on March 25th at 11:15 a.m. and is part of the USHCC’s ongoing mission to level the playing field for Hispanic entrepreneurs. The briefing will be led by the USHCC’s Federal Sector Procurement Council, which was established in 2003 to increase the number and value of federal contracts awarded to Hispanic businesses.

According to an annual Scorecard Report, Federal Agencies: Closed to Small Business, issued by the Democrats in the House Committee on Small Business in 2003, while federal government buying increased by more than 7 percent from $220 billion to $235 billion, the share of contracts awarded to small businesses declined. It also found that the government failed to achieve its statutory small business goal of 23 percent and 5 percent for minority businesses, costing small businesses an estimated $13.8 billion in federal contracting opportunities.

The new outreach initiative, spearheaded by the USHCC Federal Sector Procurement Council, attempts to forge alliances with federal agencies to help them better target minority-owned businesses in their procurement programs. The initiative targets senior management officials at the “top ten” agencies, which were determined by the level of procurement and spending. These federal agencies include the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, the U.S. Postal Service, the General Services Administration and the Departments of Justice, Defense, Energy, and Homeland Security.

“In 2002, the federal government purchased over $235 billion in goods and services; Hispanic entrepreneurs need the opportunity to bring their skills and services to this growing market,” said John D. Gonzalez, Co-Chair of the USHCC Federal Sector Procurement Council. “With the help of our nation’s federal agencies we can open the federal marketplace to Hispanic business and increase their participation in the procurement arena.”

The “Expanding Opportunities to Hispanic Business” briefing will highlight the benefit of this new outreach effort for Latino-owned businesses and current efforts by the federal government to strengthen federal procurement for minority-owned businesses. Participants will include Felipe Mendoza, Associate Administrator of the Office of Small and Disadvantaged Business Utilization (OSDBU) for the General Services Administration, Theresa Avillar-Speake, Director of the OSDBU for the Department of Energy, Ralph C. Thomas III, Associate Administrator of the OSDBU for NASA and Frank Ramos, Director of the OSDBU, for the Department of Defense.

For more information at http://www.ushcc.com

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