Presenting the results on Wednesday, chamber president Gertrud Rantzen said however that the problems remain the same despite a more positive economic situation.

Although the business environment has improved significantly over the year before, according to the survey, companies in Slovenia still face high taxes, high labour costs and rigid labour legislation.

The survey among German companies in Slovenia has been conducted by the Slovenian-German Chamber of Commerce since 2006. "Throughout the years, the advantages and weaknesses have remained more or less the same," said Rantzen.

The survey shows that 53% of German companies in Slovenia believe the economic situation in the country is satisfactory, an improvement of 35 percentage points over last year's survey. The situation is however still far from good, according to the chamber.

Moreover, the number of those optimistic about this year has tripled to 27%, while the share of pessimists halved to 19%.

The survey also showed that 32% of the companies plan to hire this year (up 10 points from 2013), while 40% intend to increase investments (up 16 points year-on-year).

Slovenia has moreover managed to gain three spots to place fifth among the middle and eastern European countries as regards attractiveness for investors.

There are currently 550 companies with German capital in Slovenia. They employ 46,000 people and their investments in 2013 topped EUR 684m (up 1.8% from 2012).