Foreign owners recorded a combined loss of EUR 50.6m, the worst annual showing so far. The poor performance is blamed mainly on the real estate and financial services sectors, the report says.

Investors come mostly from EU member states and Switzerland, most of them from Austria, Italy, Germany and Croatia. These invested most heavily in retail and financial services without insurance and pension funds.

Companies with FDI represented 4.5% of all companies in the country, except financial intermediaries, at the end of 2014, the same share as a year ago.

Most of the foreign-owned enterprises (12%) were in the manufacturing sector. These companies employed almost a half of all employees in companies with foreign ownership.

The report also says that foreign-owned firms paid out 12.5% higher pay per employee compared with the mean pay in the country. These companies also posted higher net profit and value added per employee.

A quarter of Slovenian FDI abroad was indirectly foreign-owned as the Slovenian investor had passed into foreign ownership.

Companies in Slovenian shareholding abroad have been posting a combined loss since 2009, but it fell to the lowest point at the end of 2014 at EUR 88.7m.

The bulk of outward FDI was in the countries of the former Yugoslavia (66.7%), followed by Russia. More than half (54.8%) were in the services sector.

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