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For the purposes of this Part, the following terms shall have the following meanings:

(1)  “Department” means the Department of Economic Development.

(2)  “Program” means the Small and Emerging Business Development Program created within the Department of Economic Development.

(3)  “Small and emerging business” means a small business organized for profit and performing a commercially useful function, which is more than fifty percent owned and controlled by one or more small and emerging business persons and which has its principal place of business in the state.  A nonprofit organization is not a small and emerging business for purposes of this Part.

(4)  “Small and emerging business person” means a citizen of the United States who has resided in the state for at least one year and whose ability to compete in the free enterprise system has been impaired historically due to diminished capital or credit opportunities as compared to others in the same or similar line of business, and whose diminished opportunities have historically precluded, or are likely to preclude, such individual from successfully competing in the open market.

Acts 2001, No. 9, §9, eff. July 1, 2001; Acts 2006, No. 434, §1.