A survey carried out among foreign investors about Slovenia as an FDI location has shown that Slovenia's biggest advantage is quality workforce, while the main obstacle is payment discipline. The costs of labour and taxes are not among the things which would attract foreign investors to Slovenia.
The survey commissioned and presented in Ljubljana on Tuesday by the Public Agency for Entrepreneurship and Foreign Investments (JAPTI), also aimed at identifying the main problems foreign investors face in Slovenia. One of the conclusions is that long-term cooperation, quality workforce, possibilities to increase the market share, good geographical position and infrastructure are the things that attract foreign investors to Slovenia. "Motives characteristic of efficiency-seeking investments dominate. Foreign companies come to us primarily to set up production for the regional or global market," Matija Rojec, an economist and one of the authors of the survey, told the press.
Less important motives incllude tax breaks, care for key customers in the country, access to EU markets, access to production inputs, and the price of labour, according to Rojec. The biggest obstacles for FDI are high taxes, payment defaults, high labour costs, inflexibility of the labour market, ineffective judiciary, inefficient tax administration, corruption, inadequate protection of competition, the small size of the Slovenian market and rigidity of working time. The survey shows that the obstacles have increased in comparison to 2007. "We can say that the small size of the Slovenian market is an objective problem. Foreign investors who come because of the local market will probably not come," Rojec added. More than half (50.7%) of the surveyed companies has problems in finding adequate labour force, but the share is down compared to 2008. "In general, we can say that there are less difficulties with labour force", Rojec said.
Source: The SloveniaTimes
