The Slovenia Times

Bill put forward to boost investment in green transition

Economy

Ljubljana - The Economy Ministry has put forward a bill amending the investment promotion act to shift emphasis from labour-intensive to capital-intensive investments for green transition. The bill will make it possible to draw EUR 88.5 million in incentives from the European Recovery and Resilience Fund.

According to the draft amendments published by the ministry on the e-democracy website, the bill is one of the first and key reform and investment measures under the national recovery and resilience plan. The proposal is subject to public consultation until 18 October.

A total of 59 investments are expected to be supported with grants. These are to be capital-intensive, highly-productive and green investments which should enhance the Slovenian economy's productivity in the long term.

"The idea is to sift from stimulating labour-intensive investments to stimulating capital-intensive investments whose goal is to boost the green and digital competitiveness of the Slovenian economy," the ministry says.

While the focus so far has been on the creation of new jobs it will shift to supporting highly-productive, sustainable, competitive and digitalised business models.

Incentives would thus be aimed at business investments that over time will be able to create a higher added value per an employee through higher output and responsible management of resources, including by following the principles of re-use.

The draft bill removes the creation of new jobs as the condition for incentives for investments valued at between one and and 12 million euro in manufacturing, between EUR 500,000 and EUR 3 million in the services sector or between EUR 500,000 and EUR 2 million in research and development. The same adjustment goes for strategic investments.

The measures to assess eligible investments will be changed to follow environmentally sustainable goals to the greatest extent possible. They will be determined in more detail in an executive regulation.

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