GMAT机考模拟阅读理解12

     Federal efforts to aid minority businesses began in the 1960 s when the Small Business Administration (SBA) began making federally guaranteed loans and govern-ment-sponsored management and technical assistance (5) available to minority business enterprises. While this program enabled many minority entrepreneurs to form new businesses, the results were disappointing, since managerial inexperience, unfavorable locations, and capital shortages led to high failure rates. Even 15 (10) years after the program was implemented, minority business receipts were not quite two percent of the national economy s total receipts.

      Recently federal policymakers have adopted an approach intended to accelerate development of the(15) minority business sector by moving away from directly aiding small minority enterprises and toward supporting larger, growth-oriented minority firms through interme-diary companies. In this approach, large corporations participate in the development of successful and stable (20) minority businesses by making use of government-sponsored venture capital. The capital is used by a participating company to establish a Minority Enterprise Small Business Investment Company or MESBIC. The MESBIC then provides capital and guidance to minority(25) businesses that have potential to become future suppliers or customers of the sponsoring company. MESBIC s are the result of the belief that providing established firms with easier access to relevant manage-ment techniques and more job-specific experience, as(30) well as substantial amounts of capital, gives those firms a greater opportunity to develop sound business founda-tions than does simply making general management experience and small amounts of capital available.

Further, since potential markets for the minority busi-(35) nesses already exist through the sponsoring companies,the minority businesses face considerably less risk in terms of location and market fluctuation. Following early financial and