During the first stage of the SubMet project and since the Tacis CBC project was started, Finnish-Russian groups of companies have been formed on the basis of the needs of Finnish companies. In these groups, the division of tasks between the leader company and its partners has been preliminarily determined. As the first stage ends, the Finnish companies have a development plan and clear objectives for co-operation with Russian partners. The SubMet II (second stage of the project) aims at improving practical co-operation and eliminating unnecessary intermediate organisations from the co-operation between the companies.