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.