Washington DC – Often lost in the fast-paced shuffle of the business scene, minority businesses took center stage at the 28^th Annual Minority Enterprise Development Week hosted by the U.S. Department of Commerce on August 23-27, 2010 at the Omni Shoreham Hotel in Washington DC.

The event, which attracted approximately 2,000 registered participants and boasted such VIPs as Javier Palomarez, the President and CEO of the U.S. Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, U.S. Ambassador to South Africa Ebrahim Rasool, and U.S. Secretary of Commerce Gary Locke, has never been more timely, nor generated so much national attention.

This is because of President Obama’s National Export Initiative. Unveiled on March 1, 2010, the NEI is part of the President’s plan to jumpstart recovery from the recession, create new jobs, and position U.S. companies as the leader in the international economy. Through the NEI, the U.S. government hopes to double exports in the next two years by knocking down trade barriers around the world.

“95% of the consumers are in international markets,” Secretary Locke said. “Less than 1% of American’s 30 million companies export and of that 1%, 58% only export to one country.”

Critical to the initiative is the success of minority owned small businesses since they are twice as likely to export as traditional companies.

“The work of MBDA… is critical to the national’s competitive advantage in the global economy… [to ending] the cycle of boom and bust,” said Esther Lee, Director of Innovation and Entrepreneurship

With minority-owned firms also generating $1 trillion in economic output and creating nearly 6 million jobs, they are being regarded as the spearhead for the President’s effort to capture more of the global market.

Secretary Locke highlighted several ways in which the U.S. government was helping small businesses achieve this goal, including trade specialists that help match foreign buyers and customers to American countries.

The government’s emphasis on international markets was reinforced by the various new partnerships that MBDA forged for this year’s MEDWeek, including a partnership with the International Trade Alliance, the South African Embassy, and the Chinese Embassy. The Chinese Embassy hosted a sold out business to business networking event to encourage partnerships between American and Chinese businesses on Thursday evening.

Lan Chuan, representing a company from Taiwan called Gigabyte which manufactures computer hardware, is taking advantage of the U.S. government’s extended hand at the conference.

“It’s been good for networking overseas and to know about U.S. policy regarding the economy,” she said. “We’ve met a lot of potential customers.”

One of the people she’s met is Henry Lee, the general manager of Firich Enterprises Co.

“It’s quite a good idea to know how the government can help,” he said.

For people like Lee, MED Week offered a variety of programming including workshops on everything from marketing to the federal government, to a panel titled,” The Legal and Financial Considerations of Joint Ventures, Mergers and Acquisitions” which encouraged minority owned businesses to grow in unconventional ways.

The week concluded with the ever-popular Business to Business Expo where over 29 federal and corporate buyers networked with minority business owners in the recognition that this was a group of people who were uniquely poised to bring America into the competitive global marketplace.