16 September 2009

U.S. Hispanic Entrepreneurs Create Wealth

Audio by U.S. Hispanic Chamber of Commerce’s David Ferreira

The speaker is U.S. Hispanic Chamber of Commerce Vice President David Ferreira talking about the economic growth of the U.S. Hispanic Community and its impact on trade with Latin America.

(begin transcript)

The U.S. Hispanic community is a community that is one of the fastest-growing communities in the country, demographically. And then, in addition to that, it is upwardly mobile. It’s generally moving up, socio-economically, which drives towards the infinite potential for growth of a community that has primarily been in many cases from working class and is starting to now move into middle class. And we’re seeing crops of Hispanic billionaires. We also know that the Hispanic community has the strongest entrepreneurial [stammer] track record of many of the other demographics of our nation. Hispanics outnumber, in terms of the creation of new businesses, all other demographics. Especially, within the Hispanic community, it’s actually Latinas, Hispanic women, that are leading that trend as well, helping lead that trend, faster than Hispanic men. So, generally speaking, you see that it is both the general economic growth, the population growth and the entrepreneurial spirit of our community that are leading to this growth in our buying power and in our ability to be part of the economy of the nation.

[Break]

The rising economic power of U.S. Hispanics is having an incredibly beneficial impact in the trade with Latin America. We see that what can sometimes be a migratory chain becomes a supply chain. It can be very much, and it’s a two-way street. It becomes the migrant that sets up a business in the U.S. and starts selling American products to export abroad to their home country, or to import products to sell in the United States. Generally speaking, what we find is, it has a very beneficial impact on both sides of the border. Because we at the United States Hispanic Chamber of Commerce believe that trade is a benefit in its own ends, in that especially when it comes to cases of Latin America, we believe that it strengthens not only our economic relations with those countries but it also improves our diplomatic and personal relationships with those countries. And at a time when the world is a little more complicated politically, we think that building bridges of commerce is better than building walls.

(end transcript)