Obama signs into law new authority to increase opportunities for women-owned small businesses

WASHINGTON – The U.S. Small Business Administration administrator has applauded President Barack Obama’s signing of the 2015 National Defense Authorization Act, which contains a provision aimed toward increasing women-owned small businesses access to the federal contracting marketplace.
Maria Contreras-Sweet, SBA administrator, is encouraged by the provision and says it can act as a tool to level the playing field for women-owned business.
“Passage of the women’s small business provision in NDAA is a win for women entrepreneurs and a win for America,” Contreras-Sweet said in a statement. “This will help women-owned small businesses gain equal access to federal contracting as they add jobs to the U.S. economy.”
More than one in four U.S. companies is owned or led by a woman, which employs more than 7.8 million U.S. Americans, according to Contreras-Sweet, who testified on the issue before the U.S. Senate Committee on Small Business and Entrepreneurship in July.
The provision authorizes federal agencies to award sole-source contracts – commonly referred to as no-bid contracts – to women-owned businesses under the Woman-Owned Small Business (WOSB) Federal Contract Program, which gives “women the same level of access to the federal contracting marketplaces as other disadvantaged groups,” according to an SBA press release.
Currently, women entrepreneurs receive less than 5 percent of federal contracts and although the WOSB legislation passed in 2000, it wasn’t enacted until April 2011, according to the release.
“The new provision will give the SBA a new tool to continue to open doors for more women entrepreneurs in the federal and commercial contract space,” according to the release.

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