WASHINGTON D.C. – The U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA) announced today that the federal government met its small business federal contracting goal for the first time in eight years, awarding 23.39 percent in federal contracts to small businesses totaling $83.1 billion of eligible contracting dollars.

The U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) contributed to achieving this goal by earning the overall grade of A on the FY 2013 Federal Procurement Scorecard.

In FY 2013, USAID awarded 9.4% to small disadvantaged businesses, almost doubling the Agency’s goal of 5 percent. USAID also exceeded its goal for awards to women-owned small business.

“This past year was our best yet — with our Agency awarding more dollars to American small businesses than ever before,” said USAID Administrator Rajiv Shah. “We not only met this year’s small business goal, but we exceeded it by the largest margin ever.

For the first time ever,  performance in four out of five of the small business prime contracting categories showed significant improvement government-wide, with increases in performance against statutory goals. While contract dollars have gone down in all categories as a result of overall reduced federal spending, small businesses still secured a greater percentage of the contracting dollars.

“Thanks to the President’s leadership and a team effort among all federal agencies, we were able to meet this goal,” said SBA Administrator Maria Contreras-Sweet. “When we hit our small business procurement target, it’s a win. Small businesses get the revenue they need to grow and create jobs, and the federal government gets the chance to work with some of the most responsive, innovative and nimble companies in the U.S. while the economy grows.”

The individual agency scorecards released today by SBA, as well as a detailed explanation of the scorecard methodology, is available online: http://go.usa.gov/Nxxd