This means that one in six jobs in Slovenia involves export activities, while Slovenian exports to countries outside the EU also support 20,000 jobs in the rest of the EU, a comparative study for 1995-2011 released by the European Commission on Monday shows.

Some 65% of all export-related posts in Slovenia were in manufacturing in 2011, while in 1995, the share of these jobs stood at 72%.

On the other hand, jobs in the services sector increased by eight percentage points to 32% from 1995 to 2011.

The rest of export-related jobs were in the primary sector, which among others includes agriculture and mining.

Between 1995 and 2011, exports from Slovenia to Russia dropped by two points to 11%, while exports to the US were down from 12% to 7%.

On the contrary, Slovenia's exports to China jumped from zero to 5%.

At the EU level (Croatia excluded), meanwhile, one in seven jobs is related to exports.

In the surveyed period the Union saw a rise in employment related to exports by 67% to 31.1 million jobs.

The bulk of the growth can be attributed to Germany, since employment in export activities there grew by 4 million jobs, the survey shows.

Germany, which provided almost a quarter of all export-related employment, was followed by Italy (960,000 jobs) and Poland (860,000 jobs).