EU report: Slovenia not a favourable environment for SMEs
Slovenia has improved access to finance for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and to some extent also the responsiveness of the state administration.
But the main issues remain unabated, particularly red tape, the Commission wrote, calling for an acceleration in the "reduction of administrative burden" and "increasing the efficiency of the public administration".
According to the report, Slovenia should reduce the high labour costs and address the lack of a qualified workforce, while entrepreneurship education also needs to be strengthened.
Nevertheless, the report finds that Slovenian SMEs have recovered relatively well from the financial crisis, as value added and employment in SMEs were only 4% and 5% below their 2008 levels last year, respectively.
Moreover, the outlook is positive, as the value added of SME's is expected to increase by 6% in 2015-2017 and employment by 2%, which should create around 8000 new jobs.
SMEs provide over 72% of all jobs in Slovenia and almost 63% of the total value added, around 5% above the EU average in both cases.
Slovenia's envoy for SMEs Sabina Koleša, the head of the directorate for entrepreneurship, competitiveness and technology at the Economy Ministry, agreed that the conditions for SMEs were not ideal in Slovenia.
But she stressed for the STA that the trends were positive and that the pre-crisis level could be reached by 2018.
She said the state was taking measures to encourage the establishment and growth of companies, noting that access to funding has improved and that there were many opportunities for both start-ups and other companies.
According to Koleša, steps are also being made in entrepreneurship training and education with different initiatives from the economy and education ministries and SPIRIT, the public agency for the promotion of entrepreneurship and investment.
She said that pilot apprenticeship projects were being introduced in cooperation of the economy and education ministries, the Chamber of Commerce and Industry, and companies.
Koleša also said that reducing red tape was one of the government's priorities, pointing to an SME test the government introduced in June this year to prevent new legislation that would hinder SMEs.