The U.S. Small Business Administration is expanding federal contracting opportunities for women-owned small businesses effective Feb. 4. Kathy Kahn of HV Biz reports that the SBA move is based on analysis in The Rand Report, commissioned by the agency from the Kauffman-Rand foundation and released in March, 2010, which identified 83 industries in which women-owned small businesses are underrepresented or substantially underrepresented. A new set of procedures authorized by the Small Business Act known as The Final Rule will help to ensure a level playing field on which women-owned and run businesses can compete for federal contracting opportunities, while helping achieve the existing statutory goal that 5 percent of federal contracting dollars go to women-owned small businesses. In accordance with the statute, the Final Rule authorizes a set-aside of federal contracts for women-owned small businesses or economically disadvantaged women-owned small businesses where the anticipated contract price does not exceed $5 million in the case of manufacturing contracts and $3 million in the case of other contracts, if certain conditions are met.

Procurement technical assistance centers work with small businesses that have been actively pursuing and getting business for at least one year, is a comprehensive resource for small businesses that seek to market and sell its products and/or services to government agencies – the U.S. Department of Defense, federal, state and local governments and their prime contractors. PTAC acts as a bridge between a government buyer and supplier. Currently, New York's only such centers are in the Metro New York and lower Hudson Valley regions, Rochester, and the northwestern Adirondacks.