The SBA said it has proposed increasing size standards for 71 types of businesses with most in the retail, hotel and food service sectors in an effort to open access to its programs.The agency's current size standards consist of 45 different levels, cover 1,141 industries and 17 sub-industries. Of these size levels, 32 are based on average annual receipts, eight are based on number of employees, and five are based on other measures. In addition, SBA has established 11 other size standards for its financial and procurement programs.To simplify size standards, the SBA has proposed selecting a size standard for an industry from a limited number of receipts-based size standard levels. Rather than review all size standards at one time, the agency said a more manageable approach would be to examine a group of related industries within a sector in phases.Comments on the proposal can be submitted by Dec. 21 at www.regulations.gov. More details on the size standards are available in the "What's New" section at http://www.sba.gov/size.–[email protected]