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Illinois’ State Trade and Export Promotion (ISTEP) program provides Illinois’ small businesses with both financial and technical assistance to increase their exports. The ISTEP program includes 4 options for Illinois’ companies to grow their export sales: Group Trade Missions (GTM), Individual Foreign Market Sales Missions (IFMSM), Product Compliance (PC) and Website Localization (WL).
ISTEP assistance will be provided on a first come, first served basis for all qualifying companies.
Update: ISTEP funds may now be used to attend Virtual Trade Shows. Eligible Illinois companies may apply for reimbursement of costs associated with participation in Virtual Trade Shows, up to $7,500.
Group Trade Missions (GTM)
Group Trade Missions are available to a limited number of companies. Qualified businesses will receive:
Group Trade Mission Schedule 2019- 2020
Individual Foreign Market Sales Missions (IFMSM)
Businesses outside of the sectors represented in the scheduled ISTEP Group Trade Missions are encouraged to undertake an Individual Foreign Market Sales Mission. Qualified businesses will receive:
Product Compliance Certification (PC)
Financial assistance is available to help Illinois’ small and medium-sized businesses obtain compliance certification services for their products. This assistance is available for measures taken to comply with foreign regulations including those for agricultural products, ISO registration, and packing and recycling laws. Priority will be for lab testing services to achieve product certification, such as CCC mark, CE mark, ISO 9001, ITAR, AS91 00, and ATEX. Qualified businesses will receive:
Website Localization (WL)
Financial assistance is available for website localization which consists of website translation services, localization for foreign markets, and search engine optimization for companies to increase opportunities for export success.
Illinois businesses must meet the following criteria:
For complete details regarding the ISTEP Program, please visit this link, or contact the International Trade Center at 618.650.3851 or via e-mail at International-Trade-Center@siue.edu.
Click Here for an application (requires most recent version of Adobe Reader) . If you receive a warning from your Internet browser asking you to keep or discard the download file, please select "Keep" to proceed with the application download.
If you have an electronic signature on file, please fill in all necessary fields and click "Submit" to send via Outlook or similar email application to International-Trade-Center@siue.edu.
If you do not have an electronic signature, please fill in all necessary fields and print the application. After signing the paper version, please mail or fax to the ITC.