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An important function of the organization is to educate and motivate Asian American businesses to take a more active role in New York's various federal, state and city programs that help minority businesses compete for and get a fair share of the business opportunities with government entities.
AABDC documents Asian Americans' accomplishments in business and industry, and recognizes their individual achievements by honoring them in an annual Outstanding 50 Asian Americans in Business awards dinner.
Business Assistance: AABDC's innovative approach in creating programs to promote and assist Asian American businesses to compete in the mainstream marketplace and for the sustainable business development of the Chinatown and Greater New York City Asian-American community - whether in the forms of small business assistance, tourism development, entrepreneurship promotion, marketing support - have placed the organization in the forefront of community economic development and command the respect of public and private sectors.
Why is the M/WBE Program Not Working? Since its inception, the purpose of the Minority/Women Business Enterprise Program (M/WBE) has always been about getting certified. The theory is that once you are certified as an MBE or WBE you are presumed qualified to bid on procurement contracts in the public or private sector.
It has become fashionable, indeed mandatory in some cases，for Federal, state and local government agencies to create M/WBE programs that encourage, or even require, any interested business to become certified in order to gain access to bidding opportunities on government contracts.
In fact, a whole cottage industry was born to sell the merits of certification to the minority community and every public official extolled its virtue, even though businesses are warned that certification does not guarantee a contract but only gives one supposed access to participating in procurement opportunities.
Even this benign program caught the ire of the U.S. Supreme Court and it repeatedly issued decisions to overturn any program that was suspected to be giving MBEs “unfair” advantage in the procurement process. It required that any jurisdiction had to conduct a “disparity” study to demonstrate through a complex formula that minority and women owned businesses must have been discriminated against before it could create an M/WBE program to provide “utilization rate” for M/WBEs.
Another cottage industry of “disparity study” experts sprung to life. One example of work by these experts was the well-intentioned but almost tragic-comic outcome of a $2 million disparity study funded by the New York City Council that resulted in the passage of Local Law 129 and the re-creation of city’s M/WBE Program.
The program established “Citywide Utilization Goals” for M/WBEs to “reduce disparity and to ensure fair participation and equal opportunity in city procurement.” The goals are based on findings in the disparity study that was to be applied in four industries: construction, professional services, standard services and goods, in which participation goals were established for African American, Asian American, Hispanic American and Caucasian Female. There is no mention of minority female.
For African Americans the Citywide Utilization Goals range from 7.47 percent to 12.63 percent; for Asian Americans there is a 5.29 percent goal for one industry and none for the other three; for Hispanic Americans the goals range from 4.99 percent to 9.06 percent; and for Caucasian Female there is no goal in one industry and 10.45 percent to 17.87 percent in the other three.
All the while the city is trumpeting that nearly one-third of companies in New York City are owned by minority entrepreneurs and more than 25 percent are owned by women. So what is wrong with this picture? Why are minority owned firms not getting a fair share of government contracts despite their huge numbers? Why have the past and present M/WBE programs failed to help minority firms participate in government procurement?
After more than two decades of intense involvement in advocating for M/WBE program and encouraging minority owned businesses to get certified to gain access to government contracts, I finally realized that very little, if any, real progress has been made. The answer is simple. Those who are in charge of procuring goods and services, for variety of reasons, do not seek out diverse pool of vendors that are representative of the business population composition of the given jurisdiction.
So what to do about it? I propose to eliminate all the M/WBE programs on the book and get rid of the certification nonsense and let every company demonstrate their capability to do the job through fair and open bidding on price, knowhow and quality of work. We should demand that every top elected government official at every level of government, whether federal, state or city, ensure his/her jurisdiction will give all business fair participation and equal opportunity to government procurement. The chief executive, in turn, should hold every agency head he/she appoints responsible for ensuring that their agency’s procurement practices comply with that principle and that their procurement officers are buying from firms that reflect the ethnic composition of the business community that serves the area.
There is no excuse that one-third of companies in a given area should have less than 5 or 10 percent of government contracts. If the fair participation and equal opportunity principle is being applied in the first place, there would have been no need for the M/WBE program.
Written by John Wang
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Jackie Chan supports the New York Chinatown.
The first and only comprehensive Chinatown Travel Guide featuring hundreds of local vendors and merchants.
AABDC Financial Assistance Center's opening Reception in Chinatown, 2003.
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