The increase in inward FDI in Slovenia was mostly attributable to transactions (EUR 1,139.5m), and less to other changes (EUR 198.2m). The largest inflows in 2016 were in the form of equity transactions, which amounted to EUR 938.1m. The largest factors in the increase were foreign investment in financial and insurance activities and in manufacturing (EUR 643.1m). In addition to equity inflows, reinvested earnings contributed EUR 577.4m to the increase in 2016, while transactions in debt instruments reduced net debt to foreign owners by EUR 375.9m in 2016. Net debt thus amounted to EUR 1,407.4m at the end of 2016, down 22.2% on the end of the previous year.

EU Member States prevail among investor countries, accounting for 84.7% of all inward FDI, in value terms, at the end of 2016. The most important of these investors is Austria, which accounted for 24.7% of all inward FDI, followed by Luxembourg, Switzerland, Italy and Germany. Even though investments form Luxembourg recorded the highest increase in 2016, these investments generally do not involve capital of Luxembourg origin. In terms of ultimate investing countries, the Top 5 investors come from Germany, the United States, Austria, Italy and Switzerland. Also, in terms of the ultimate investing country, France, the Russian Federation and Mexico are all much more important investor countries in Slovenia than is suggested by the breakdown by the immediate partner country. Germany holds the majority of its indirect investments in Slovenia via Austrian subsidiaries, while the same is also true of the Russian Federation and Mexico. The US, as the ultimate investing country, held EUR 1,795m of inward FDI in Slovenia at the end of 2016, the majority of the investments being held indirectly via subsidiaries in Luxembourg, Sweden, Germany and Switzerland.

Service activities are prevalent over the time series for inward FDI, and accounted for the 65% of total inward FDI in Slovenia in 2016, and recorded an average annual growth rate of 6.8% over the last ten years and 14.6% over the last year alone.

In the breakdown of FDI by statistical region, the highest concentration in total inward FDI, in value terms over the entire observation period, is to the region of Central Slovenia, which accounted for 60.8% of the total at the end of 2016 followed by Podravska (10.4% of total inward FDI), the Coastal-Karst and Gorenjska (5.9% each). 2016 saw a large increase in inward FDI in Podravska, where it increased by EUR 708.3m or 111.4%.

At the end of 2016, companies with FDI accounted for 4.7% of the total population of Slovenian companies, down 0.2 percentage points on 2015. The most important activity was manufacturing, which in 2016 accounted for 14.5% of all companies with FDI and employed more than half of all employees at companies with foreign capital. The wages per employee paid by companies with FDI were 12.7% higher than the average wages per employee in Slovenia overall. Companies with FDI also achieved higher net profit per employee and higher value-added per employee.

  

Bank of Slovenia