Hispanic-Owned Businesses in US Have Doubled over Decade

Nearly 3.2 million

The number of Hispanic-owned businesses in the U.S. is expected to nearly double this year from 2002.

That's the finding of a study released Friday by the U.S. Hispanic Chamber of Commerce and Geoscape, a company that provides demographics data. The study, which analyzes U.S. census data and other information, projects there will be nearly 3.2 million Hispanic-owned businesses in the country in 2013, up from nearly 1.7 million in 2002.

The study also forecasts that the number of Hispanic-owned businesses in what it calls the South Atlantic region — Maryland, Virginia, West Virginia, the Carolinas, Georgia and Florida — will surpass the number in the Pacific region, which includes the West Coast and Alaska and Hawaii.