Immigrant Affairs

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It’s no secret that Los Angeles County has many businesses started by immigrants, but a study said L.A. leads the country in the number of Hispanic- and Asian-owned companies.


The Center for an Urban Future, a New York-based think tank that focuses a good deal of its work on immigrants, reported last week that L.A. County has more Hispanic-owned businesses, at 188,472, than even Miami’s Dade County and three times as many Asian-owned companies, at 140,411, than any other U.S. city.


“Immigrant entrepreneurs are now the entrepreneurial sparkplugs of cities,” said Jonathan Bowles, the report’s primary author. “They are an incredible asset for cities that has only begun to be tapped for economic development.”


According to the study, at least 22 of L.A.’s 100 fastest growing companies were founded by first-generation immigrants in 2005.


The study said one economic development expert estimates that about 80 percent of the new entrepreneurs in Los Angeles are immigrants.


And while the majority of immigrant-run firms are small, L.A. has produced some of the largest and most successful ethnic firms in the nation. In 2006, 36 of the 500 largest Hispanic-owned businesses in the U.S. were based in L.A. County.


The average Asian-owned firm had higher receipts in L.A. than in nine of the 10 other cities with the most Asian-owned businesses.

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