Thank you, Susan for that warm introduction and for your leadership.
It’s an honor to join the U.S. Pan Asian Chamber of Commerce 2021 CelebrAsian conference, Together Tomorrow. I share your commitment to the formula: Inclusion plus allyship equals growth and opportunities.
We are committed to that same formula at the SBA as we know together we can expand opportunities for all and build back better to create an economy that works for everyone. I look forward to our continued collaboration as we build a path toward a better tomorrow for all of us.
I understand that the U.S. Pan Asian Chamber was founded 36 years ago on the belief that the power of the Asian-American small business community could become a driving force in our economy. Today, there are nearly 2 million Asian-owned small businesses in the U.S. that generate more than $700 billion in revenues and create 3.6 million jobs.
Asian-owned businesses are an economic powerhouse – and with Asian-Americans as the fastest growing demographic, the potential for growth is exponential.
Yet, we know from several studies that Asian-owned businesses suffered disproportionately from the economic impacts of this pandemic. And these impacts have been compounded by alarming levels of prejudice, hate and violence targeted at our Asian communities.
This hate has no place in America – especially as we know that growth and opportunity by supporting each other will benefit us all.
As President Biden has said repeatedly: We cannot be silent. We cannot be complicit. We have to speak out. We have to act.
I was proud to see President Biden take immediate action against this hatred, signing a presidential memorandum in the first week of his presidency that directs all federal agencies to take steps to ensure their official actions mitigate anti-bias and xenophobia.
At the SBA, we take that directive very seriously. As SBA Administrator, I’m committed to combatting hate that affects our communities including the small businesses that power them. I’m also committed to building an equitable future by eliminating barriers to capital, markets and networks that can limit opportunities for Asian-American entrepreneurs.
Through our equity task force, I’ve directed my staff to take a long, hard look at every program, every service, every resource in our portfolio and ask this question: Is this opportunity accessible to everyone?
In order to ensure that we’re reaching every entrepreneur who needs our help, we must meet small businesses where THEY are – putting the customer-first and understanding their needs and how we can help. And we need to be technology-forward - to leverage technology, streamline, automate for speed and efficiency so that we can give more of our small businesses the ability to connect to and access our services.
Ultimately, I want the SBA to be as entrepreneurial as the entrepreneurs we serve.
We recently rolled out our $28.6 billion dollar Restaurant Revitalization Program – one of several COVID relief programs created through the American Rescue Plan – and it’s success shows what we can achieve when we are customer-centric, technology forward and equitable in our approach to program design and implementation.
I’m proud to say that more than half of the 362,000 applications we received for the RRF program came from small businesses owned by women, veterans, and socially and economically-disadvantaged individuals, who, as directed by Congress, were given priority access to the program for the first 21 days.
In addition, more than one-third of our applications came from our nation’s smallest food and beverage businesses – the food carts, kitchen table caterers – who largely missed out on earlier rounds of relief.
We worked hard to get these results – conducting more than 1,000 outreach events in the weeks leading up to the program’s launch, including many in several different languages.
We also created a public private partnership with technology-forward point-of-sale vendors such as Square, Toast, Aloha and Clover, to allow businesses to apply to the program where they’re already doing business.
And we eliminated bureaucratic hurdles in the application process and used tech tools to help our food and drink entrepreneurs navigate the process. We were happy to hear that many applicants reported that the process took on average 20 minutes.
Han Ly Hwang, owner of Kim Jong Grillin, was an Oregon recipient of the Restaurant Revitalization Fund. He said that the funds he received were a complete gamechanger, and that the fact that the SBA was there to help - made him feel less alone.
Like most small business owners, Han is incredibly passionate about what he does. He opened his Korean barbecue restaurant in order to put his culture first and to share it through the food.
Helping small business owners like Han survive this pandemic – and giving them the tools they need to continue to expand and grow – that’s what SBA is here to do.
The success we achieved with the Restaurant program is just the beginning. I plan to implement this same approach across all SBA’s programs.
In the coming weeks and months, we’ll continue rolling out our COVID relief programs – our Economic Injury Disaster Loan program, which provides low-interest emergency working capital; our targeted and supplemental targeted advance grants to help hardest hit small businesses in low-income communities; and our $16.2 billion dollar Shuttered Venue Operators Grant program, which was created to help eligible performing arts organization operators, museums, talent representatives, in an industry that was among the first to close, and will likely be the last to fully reopen from the pandemic.
And we’ll be looking to the future – and what we can do to help our nation’s small businesses build back better.
The American Jobs Plan will be an important piece of that – creating opportunities for small businesses to take part in the rebuilding -- and reimagining of a new economy, while finally addressing the needs of an aging infrastructure, creating millions of good jobs, and positioning the United States to maintain its global competitiveness.
And the American Jobs Plan will focus on helping small business contractors leverage the federal marketplace to grow. Recently, President Biden announced his commitment to increase the Small Disadvantaged Business contracting goal from 5 to 15% - that’s $100 billion over five years and represents
But even more, the American Jobs Plan will allow us to tap our American-made ingenuity to rebuild in ways that give everybody a chance to succeed, and allows us to combat climate change and tackle long-standing and persistent racial injustice.
And we’ll be working to strengthen the innovation ecosystem to help bring cutting edge ideas to the market, while bolstering efforts to combat climate change – investing in small business resilience and support for the clean energy economy.
Providing this level of commitment and investment will provide the support warranted to make our nation’s small businesses feel like the giants they are in our economy.
Because the truth is small businesses are our economy. They not only create jobs and drive economic growth, but they define our main streets and communities, create the products and services we depend on, build supply chains, and innovate to solve global problems.
Asian-American small businesses are such an important part of that fabric -- in every corner of our nation.
So, thank you for your entrepreneurial spirit, small business grit and for working so hard to build resiliency during this critical time while continuing to support your communities, your employees and our nation’s economy.
Please help us spread the word across the Asian-American business community that the SBA is here to connect all entrepreneurs in America to the support they need to thrive.
Thank you.