The aim of this study is to make a research how support services on the promoting of internationalisation or exports of enterprises (grants and subsidies) are used in European countries. The main focus is on Germany and on Sweden. The rules and regulations of international trade was also studied. The purpose of the regulations is to avoid the distortion of the trade between nations. The aim has been to find good practices in order to develop the Finnish system.

The research will show that certain nations put emphasis on the promotion of internationalisation very differently. In some countries there are no promotion programmes at all and in some countries, especially in Germany, there are plenty of support programmes. Typically, most of the programmes allow smaller amounts of single granting decisions than the programmes in Finland. On the other hand the granting decisions are normally smaller in Finland than the rules allow.

In general it can be noted that the Finnish promoting system works reasonably well and that also with the current system results can be achieved. In future, however, we have to develop programmes that will take into consideration even smaller enterprises better than today.