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Hispanic-owned businesses have nearly doubled over the last decade, a rate more than twice than the average national business growth rate during that period, according to a new study released Friday.
The study, commissioned by the U.S. Hispanic Chamber of Commerce in conjunction with Geoscape, a company that crunches demographic data, analyzed Census stats to project that the count of Hispanic-owned businesses in the country has skyrocketed to 3.2 million, up from nearly 1.7 million in 2002.
The business trend reflects the spike in the country’s Latino population — now up to 53 million. The chamber’s study showed Latino businesses grew on average at nearly 7 percent annually from 2007 to 2013, compared to the average 3 percent overall business growth rate.
Among American minority groups, Hispanics are the most likely to start their own businesses, the study concluded.
The annual report is a first for the U.S. Hispanic Chamber of Commerce and was, in part, purposely released to “change the narrative” in Washington involving the current immigration reform debate in Congress, recently sidelined by the crisis in Syria.
“Everybody approached immigration reform from a civil rights perspective or a family unity perspective,” Javier Palomarez, the chamber’s president and CEO, told Fox News Latino. “This is an opportunity to weigh in from an economic perspective and remind America of the power of immigrant-owned businesses.”
The study found the majority of Hispanic entrepreneurs are recent adult immigrants, who prefer Spanish over English, or third-generation, English-dominant, Hispanics.
Geoscape split Latino entrepreneurs into five categories, based on the degree in which they’ve adapted to American culture, language and traditions.
Read full story: http://latino.foxnews.com/latino/money/2013/09/13/looking-up-new-report-shows-huge-growth-hispanic-owned-businesses/