However, the chamber also expects further measures to boost Slovenia's competitiveness, including reducing the tax wedge on lowest earnings.

The chamber said that the proposal to change the personal income tax scale, unveiled by the Finance Ministry earlier this week, was in line with their initiatives for reducing the tax burden on personal earnings.

The chamber's president Gertrud Rantzen pointed to the proposal to reduce the burden in the bracket of 20,400 to 45,000 euros in taxable income a year, that is the earnings of highly skilled staff who generate the highest value added in companies.

This is why she believes the proposal raises Slovenia's value added, while at the same time creating a better outlook for the country's highly-skilled youth.

Wolfgang Zeike, the boss of LPKF Laser&Electronics and a member of the chamber's management board, noted that many of the public sector employees made EUR 20,400-55,000 a year and that by reducing the income tax rate by 10% their salaries would increase without affecting the public sector wage bill.

Another board member, general manager of BSH Hišni aparati Wolfram Walter Pabst von Ohain, said that the proposed tax restructuring would stimulate engineers and motivate company development personnel, thus increasing Slovenia's appeal for research and development.

Zeike also commented on the proposal to increase the corporate income tax to 19% from 17% while preserving valid tax relief, saying that the chamber believed it was part of the whole package and would not harm the economy's competitive edge.

Slovenia's corporation tax is below EU average and the proposed increase would only bring it closer to the average but still preserve it much below the level of the countries with the highest corporate tax rates.

The Slovenian-German Chamber of Commerce also supports the proposed cut in the taxation of the Christmas bonus and the 13th pay.

However, the chamber also expressed the expectation that the so-called mini reform would be the government's first serious step in the efforts to optimise Slovenia's international competitiveness. One of the things it believes needs to be done is reduce the tax on those in the lowest income brackets.

The tax restructuring blueprint has divided business; while being rejected by the Chamber of Commerce and Industry (GZS), Chamber of Craft and Small Business (OZS) and the Employers' Association, it was backed by the Manager Association and the CEOs of some big companies, including drug companies Krka and Lek.

The proposal has also met with disapproval from the trade unions, while receiving mixed reactions from the ruling coalition.