The U.S. Small Business Administration’s release of the Fiscal Year 2019 Small Business Federal Procurement Scorecard shows a record-breaking $132.9 billion in prime federal contracts – 26.5 percent of the federal contracting dollars — were awarded to small businesses. The federal government-wide prime contracting goal is for at least 23 percent of all prime federal contracting dollars should be awarded to small businesses.
Exactly 2,067 small businesses in Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands were awarded $618,762,045 in federal contracts during this time.
Of the federal dollars distributed to Puerto Rico and U.S. Virgin Island small business contractors last year, 16.27 percent went to Women-Owned Small Businesses.
The overall FY19 numbers are an increase of $12.1 billion over the previous fiscal year and mark the seventh consecutive year the federal government exceeded its small business contracting goal. Targeted sub-goals are also established for women-owned small businesses (5 percent), small disadvantaged businesses (5 percent), firms located in HUBZones (3 percent) and service-disabled veteran-owned small businesses (3 percent) as well that are meant to be subsets of the overall small business goal of 23 percent.
Puerto Rico and U.S. Virgin Islands small businesses surpassed each of the five categories’ goals.
“Over $750 million in federal contracting dollars were awarded directly to small businesses in Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands last year,” said SBA Atlantic and Mid-Atlantic Regional Administrator Steve Bulger.
“Last year showed the tremendous positive impact government contracting can have on small businesses. Puerto Rico and U.S. Virgin Islands small businesses increased their revenues and customer base by selling to the United States government. The overall small business prime contracting goals have been established by Congress to ensure that small businesses get their fair share of federal contracts, and small businesses in Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands performed quite well; over 12 percent of small disadvantaged businesses were awarded almost $367,000 in federal contracts while well over 16 percent of women-owned small businesses were awarded $122 million,” said SBA Puerto Rico and U.S. Virgin Islands Acting District Director María de los Ángeles de Jesús.
