Bloomberg Reports: First-time suppliers to U.S. drop most since ‘05
13
Dec
Excerpt:
"The number of new suppliers to civilian U.S. government agencies declined this year by the most in at least five years, even as federal contracting officials pledged to expand the pool of vendors.
The BGOV Barometer shows that contract orders in fiscal 2011 went to 19,650 companies that hadn’t done any business with the U.S. government in the previous five years. That number was down 23 percent from 2010, the biggest annual decline since 2005, the most recent year for which comparable data are available."
Ms. Williams adds,
"Contributing to the decline are federal budget cuts and the expanding use of multiple-award contracts that direct orders to a pre-selected pool of companies, a trend that has hurt smaller vendors in particular, said Terry Williams, chief executive officer of the American Small Business Chamber of Commerce, based in Washington.
“By suppressing small business access to contracts, the federal government continues to miss their goals, and they have set these goals with these firms far too low,” Williams said.
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