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Asian Pacific Islander Small Business Program Received $110,000 from Wells Fargo

LOS ANGELES, Calif., Dec. 15, 2006

The Asian Pacific Islander Small Business Program (API SBP) and Wells Fargo hosted a news conference today at the Los Angeles Chamber of Commerce office to announce an $110,000 donation to support the API SBP from the Wells Fargo Foundation. In addition, the API SBP recognized four Asian Pacific Islander (API) small businesses owners for their outstanding entrepreneurship and business innovation.

API SBP recognized current clients who have succeeded despite the challenges of language barriers, unfamiliar financial environments in addition to the normal trials that face the new entrepreneur. The four API small business owners recognized by the API SBP are:

• Que Dang - Blue Hen Vietnamese Kitchen (Little Tokyo Service Center)
• Jan. S. Punpairos - Advanced Compressors, Inc. (Thai Community Development Center)
• Joshue Jose - Tribal Cafe (Search to Involve Pilipino Americans)
• Anna Michelle Wang - Kitsch'n Glam, Inc. (Chinatown Service Center)

According to the U.S. Census, Asian-owned businesses continue to grow faster than the national average. There were 1.1 million Asian-owned businesses in 2002, up 24 percent from 1997. There were 32,299 native Hawaiian- and other Pacific islander-owned businesses in 2002, up 67 percent from 1997.

Speaking at the press conference were: Cooke Sunoo, API Small Business Program director; Jerry Ruiz, senior vice president and head of Wells FargoÕs Community Development Group for Los Angeles; Johng Ho Song, Korean Youth & Community Center executive director; Joel Jacinto, Search to Involve Pilipino Americans executive director; Chanchanit Martorell, Thai Community Development Center executive director; Joyce Chan, Chinatown Service Center; Dean Matsubayashi, Little Tokyo Service Center; and Rick Lam, Wells Fargo vice president/California Business Banking Commercial Loan area manager.

About the Asian Pacific Islander Small Business Program
The Asian Pacific Islander Small Business Program, a collaborative effort to help increase the number of small-and micro-businesses, particularly among low-income immigrants and Filipino, Chinese, Japanese, Korean and Thai business people. API SBP is partially funded by the U.S. Small Business Administration and does not charge clients for its counseling services.

About Wells Fargo
Wells Fargo & Company is a diversified financial services company with $483 billion in assets, providing banking, insurance, investments, mortgage and consumer finance to more than 23 million customers from more than 6,200 stores and the internet (wellsfargo.com) across North America and internationally. Wells Fargo Bank, N.A. has the highest possible credit rating, "Aaa," from Moody's Investors Service and the highest credit rating given to a U.S. bank, "AA+," from Standard & Poor's Ratings Services.

PHOTO CAPTION: Wells Fargo presents a check of $110,000 to the Asian Pacific Islander Small Business Program on Dec. 15, 2006. (Left to right) Joel Jacinto, Search to Involve Pilipino Americans executive director; Joyce Chan, Chinatown Service Center; Keh Trikandha, Thai Community Development Center; Johng Ho Song, Koreatown Youth & Community Center executive director; Jerry Ruiz, head of Wells Fargo Community Development in Los Angeles; Rick Lam, Wells Fargo California Business Group area manager; Cooke Sunoo, Asian Pacific Islander Small Business Program director and Dean Matsubayashi, Little Tokyo Service Center.