Commenting on the negative reaction from business associations to the announced changes to taxation of corporate income and capital, the minister said in the interview published on Saturday that the whole picture needed to be taken into account.

"We should for, for example, listen to the OECD, which has told us that capital in Slovenia is undertaxed," he said, adding that "we therefore needed the measures".

Bertoncelj said that the most appropriate thing to do was to keep a favourable system of final taxation, adding that "we only increased the tax rate by five percentage points".

According to the minister, the government was thinking about business while adopting the measures, including when it comes to the lowest mandatory rate of income tax.

He added that the possibility to raise the corporate income tax rate to 22% would depend on the possible cooling down of the economy.

The minister noted that the state had decided to relieve the tax burden on labour by changing the income tax brackets, raising tax breaks, lowering tax rates, expanding tax brackets and lowering taxation of holiday allowances and performance bonuses.

The government expects from companies to keep gross wages at the current level, so that employees get higher net wages, and to pay out as high holiday allowances as possible, he added.