AmCham Slovenia president Matej Potokar said in his address that a key condition for successful managing of a company was predictability, which is something Slovenia has had problems with lately.

Potokar pointed to delays in the implementation of reforms and unexpected management changes at some state-owned companies in recent weeks.

"Athletes are at the moment the most dependable people in Slovenia," Potokar said. "They have clear goals, learn from others, work hard, change constantly and adapt to the global competition."

The ambassadors of Austria, Germany, Finland, the Netherlands, Spain and Switzerland, who took part in the meeting, shared their countries' experience with the crisis.

Austrian Ambassador to Slovenia Clemens Koja said his country was doing rather well, mostly because its economy was based on SMEs, which can easily adopt to market changes.

Finland's advantage is that it is always "prepared for the worse" so it is introducing structural reforms, balancing public finances and investing in human resources and innovation, Ambassador Pekka Metso said, adding that it was important to have a vision of how the country should look like in 10 or 15 years.

He believes this is what Slovenia should do as well. "A consensus must be reached on what is national interest," he stressed.

German Ambassador Werner Burkart said an important factor in tackling the crisis in his country were "relatively reasonable trade unions", while Swiss Ambassador Robert Reich highlighted the importance of state aid to banks in his country.

Dutch Ambassador Johannes Douma said he was surprised that in Slovenia "everyone is a banking expert and everyone is an expert in managing companies". The country is slipping from one crisis into another, and these are not economic crises but political and moral crises, he stressed.

Douma called on the government and businesses to work together with determination and consensus.

Metso also underlined the importance of mutual trust and transparency. "It is important to stick with the European values of respect for the rule of law and human rights," he said, adding that the lack of this affected the economy.

Touching on privatisation, Burkart said that state management was not always the best option. "Every country decides for itself what is its strategic interest, but filling the state budget should not be the goal of privatisation."

Spanish Ambassador Anunciada Fernandez de Cordova meanwhile called for closer cooperation between Slovenian and Spanish companies in ventures on third markets such as Latin America, where Spain had "excellent ties" and the Russian and Eastern European markets, where Slovenia companies had more experience.