Asians, Pacific
Islanders top
isle biz owners

The Census figures will set
percentage guidelines for lending
activity to that group and others

By Russ Lynch
Star-Bulletin

Asians and Pacific Islanders own about 54 percent of the 94,000 businesses in Hawaii, according to new information from the U.S. Census Bureau.

That won't be a surprise to island residents, who look around every day at their friends in business who have Japanese, Chinese, Korean, Polynesian or other ancestry.

But the figures, released late yesterday by the Census Bureau, are important because they set the guidelines for a lot of federal activity in the islands.

"Those numbers establish the goals that my agency sets for my office," said Andrew K. Poepoe, Honolulu district director of the U.S. Small Business Administration.

If Asians and Pacific Islanders own 54 percent of the businesses, then the SBA has a goal of seeing that 54 percent of the small business loans it backs go to Asians and Pacific Islanders, Poepoe said yesterday.

Equally, if the Hispanic-owned business numbers should rise or fall, the SBA's loan goal for Hispanics would rise or fall accordingly. Observers say that alone is a complication because a person whose origins are in the Philippines might look back on Spanish ancestry from the days when Spain owned the Philippines and declare himself Hispanic.

Banks in some cases also use the census to monitor their lending level to minorities.

Overall, the effect of the government numbers is hard to measure, mostly because the last count of minority-owned businesses, made in 1992 and reported in 1996, lumped American Indians, Alaska natives, Asians and Pacific Islanders together as one category.

Hawaii had a higher percentage of its businesses in that category than any other state then, too: 48.6 percent of the 79,000 total businesses.

In the latest report, from the 1997 numbers, Hawaii had 5.5 percent of all Asian- and Pacific Islander-owned businesses in the nation. California topped the national percentage list, with 34.6 percent of all the U.S. businesses owned by Asians and Pacific Islanders. Unlike Hawaii, however, the category took up only 12.3 percent of the total number of businesses in that state. That was a big number nevertheless, with California showing 316,000 businesses owned by Asians and Pacific Islanders, about six times the number in Hawaii.

Breaking down the numbers LATEST U.S. CENSUS FIGURES, 1997: >>Businesses in Hawaii owned by Asians and Pacific Islanders: 50,600 >> Total businesses in Hawaii: 94,000 >> Asians and Pacific Islanders own 53.8 percent of Hawaii businesses. >> Nationally, 913,000 businesses are owned by Asians and Pacific Islanders, or 4.4 percent of 20.8 million U.S. businesses. >> Hawaii has 5.5 percent of the nation's Asian- and Pacific Islander-owned firms.