Spending power of the nation’s largest ethnic group is growing at thrice the general population’s.

Marketing geared toward Hispanics has reached $3 billion so far in 2004, up 11 percent from last year.

That number is expected to rise to $3.6 billion by 2007, according to Hispanic Business Inc., which released “U.S. Hispanic Media Markets Report, 2000-2007” earlier this week.

“The Hispanic market is growing faster than the (general) market,” said Juan Solana, chief economist of HispanTelligence, the research division of Hispanic Business Inc.

Solana said that the spending power of the general population of the U.S. has risen 2.8 percent annually over the past decade, while Hispanic spending power has risen 7.5 percent.

In 2004, Solana said that the spending power of Hispanics in the U.S. is $700 billion and that it’s expected to reach $1 trillion by 2010.

The 2000 census is a major contributor in the surge of Hispanic marketing. Advertisers realized they had “a largely underserved” market of 35 million, Solana said.

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The U.S. Hispanic population has since risen to 39 million, according to census estimates.

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