For the past 10 years Centre of International Relations (CIR) has been conducting an annual survey among firms with foreign equity in Slovenia in cooperation with the Public Agency for Entrepreneurship, Internationalization, Foreign Investments and Technology SPIRIT Slovenia. Authors of this year’s survey Andreja Jaklič, Iris Koleša and Matija Rojec present the findings on experience, characteristics, and development of firms with foreign equity in their newest report published in December 2017 in Slovene. Their research confirms that foreign-owned firms in Slovenia have been growing faster compared to the Slovenian average over the past 5 years (in terms of sales, number of employees, added value per employee, and export). One of the main advantages of Slovenia for foreign investors has remained the availability of qualified labour, which is becoming a challenge for many businesses, however: around 65% of firms are facing difficulties in finding appropriately qualified employees. The key disadvantages of Slovenian business environment according to foreign investors include: high taxation of wages and the related high labour costs, a rigid labour market, and poor functioning of the rule of law as well as lack of enforcement of legislation. Foreign-owned firms are nevertheless planning a stable growth for 2018: 70% of these firms are namely anticipating an increase in sales, while 55% are planning to increase the number of their employees (most of them are planning to increase both by more than 30%). In addition, 38,2% firms are planning expansion of business activities in Slovenia, 45% of firms are forecasting an unchanged extent of their business activities, while only 2,3 % firms intend to reduce their business activities in Slovenia.
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