Import promotion has become an important pillar of private sector development activities in many European development cooperation (DC) programs. Import promotion is seen as a way of building up sustainable sourcing chains for European companies, while at the same time promoting exports of LICs and the upgrading of their export industries. While other European donors such as the Netherlands, Switzerland or Germany have already established import promotion organizations (IPOs) as part of their DC and/or in order to support importing companies, in Austria the discussion is only at a very early stage. Against this framework, this briefing paper discusses the potential role that IPOs can play in DC programs and presents a comparative analysis of the activities and institutional framework of European-IPOs.