Several years ago, the Maine Department of Economic and Community Development began considering creating a regional center. According to the department’s Commissioner George Gervais, he expects to hear from the federal government within the next several days.
Gervais said: “We sort of placed this away because we didn’t really know whether it was ever going to happen. In the end, “we were accepted” because of one member of our team’s persistence.
For the new center, the department is drafting rules and procedures, which is critical, according to Gervais, given the troubles existing centers have had, including allegations of fraud and other issues at facilities located in Illinois, New York, Vermont, and Washington, D.C.
In order to ensure that this would be a great experience for Maine, “we are analyzing those cases, and we are simply making sure that we have all the right procedures, checks, and balances in place,” Gervais said.
It’s worth mentioning. That a notice issued by the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) in 2013 warned investors about frauds targeting the EB-5 program. Gervais, on the other hand, is certain that if the program is executed properly, it can provide much-needed funding to Maine’s initiatives.
The establishment of a regional center in Maine is not unprecedented. Private organizations, like the owners and administrators of Saddleback Ski Resort in Rangeley, have launched regional centers throughout the years, but none has drawn any money to Maine, according to Gervais.
Projects that have learned of our approval are putting pressure on us to get things moving. Gervais remarked, “However, we must take our time to ensure that we do it well.” The state of Maine has a sizable Asian population. Many of these folks are well-to-do and rich. Because of digitization, many locals, like it’s shown here, may see advertisements for Asian forex brokers, as businesses can now reach out to these types of individuals from all over the world. More than two months after Michael Chammings talked to the project manager for Miracle Enterprise, the organization was still working on its business strategy in light of the absence of a regional center, according to Auburn Economic and Community Development Director Chammings.
He stated, “I’m sure they’re pleased that the initiative has been implemented.”
Maine And Asian Communities
As many as 13.5 million people of Asian descent live in the United States. Asians currently make up 4.5 percent of the population, after decades of being barred from entering the country. Over the period from 1990 to 2000, 43 percent of the foreign-born Asian population arrived in the United States. As of 2008, 3.62 million Chinese-Americans were the biggest Asian community, followed by 3.09 million Filipinos, Asian Indians (2.7 million), Vietnamese (1.73), and Koreans (1.61). (1.30 million). Maine’s first Asian residents were recorded in 1870. One percent of the state’s population is Asian.
There shouldn’t be any surprise, though, that immigrants consistently outperform the general population in the United States when it comes to starting businesses. It spanned from tiny shops on Main Street to major corporations that employed thousands of people throughout the United States. Immigrants control more than half of the grocery businesses in the United States and almost half of the nail salons. The majority of our country’s billion-dollar businesses are also owned by foreign-born entrepreneurs. Immigrants or offspring of immigrants make up more than 40% of Fortune 500 companies.
In ordinary life, immigrants’ super-charged entrepreneurial activity has a profound impact. One out of every ten American employees were working for privately owned businesses ,founded by immigrants by 2010. Not just in Maine, but throughout the nation, immigrant entrepreneurs are presently outperforming their peers. By now, foreign-born employees account for 5% of all entrepreneurs in Maine, despite the fact that they only account for 3.7% of the state’s total population.
As a result of the more than 4,000 foreign-born entrepreneurs operating in Maine, the state’s native-born employees are also benefiting from their efforts. In 2014, their businesses made $60.8 million in profit. Furthermore, in 2007, Maine businesses with at least one immigrant owner employed 15,000 native workers.
Countries throughout the globe, including Canada, Singapore, Australia, and Chile, have adopted startup visas in an effort to lure away entrepreneurs who wish to establish a firm in the United States but are unable to get a visa.
As high-skilled workers rather than company owners, many entrepreneurs apply for a visa after selling a controlling part of their business. Jeff Bussgang and Brad Feld, two venture investors in Boston and Colorado, have started initiatives to attract foreign-born entrepreneurs to work as “entrepreneurs in residence” at schools and institutions. They may get visas by working as mentors at a school and then starting their own businesses in their spare time since nonprofit academic organizations are exempt from the H-1B quota. Entrepreneurial programs offered at 13 colleges and institutions around the United States are already making a significant impact on the economy. There have been 23 visas issued to entrepreneurs under these programs in the United States as of the middle of 2016. 261 jobs were generated and more than $100 million was raised by the businesses they started, according to the report.
