Lonstroff, which launched test production in April last year, said at the start of the facility's construction that it planned to employ 180 people in total.

The company currently operates only one shift in Logatec since Lonstroff is waiting for buyers' approval of products, said Matjaž Klipšteter of the communication management agency Taktik on behalf of Lonstroff, adding that this procedure could take a while.

The investment in Logatec reached a price tag of EUR 48 million, with Slovenia providing up to 10% of this sum.

But even before the facility started operating, the real-estate deal for the plots on which the plant was built was in the centre of scandal involving the bad bank, and is being investigated.

The plots, owned by the bad bank, ended up in Lonstroff's hands only after the bad bank sold them to a real estate agency, which charged Lonstroff a lot more than it paid for the plots to the bad bank.