Eastern and Central European Countries: Slovenia

Résumé du document

The Republic of Slovenia is a country located in the heart of Europe between Austria (North), Hungary (East), Croatia (South) and Italy (West). Its capital is Ljubljana. It became an independant state in 1991 and a member of the European Union on May 1, 2004 and it's also a member of the EuroZone. The size of the country is approximately 20,000km² for almost 2 million people and a GDP of 49.551 billions dollars in 2009, it matches to a GDP per capita of 24,583 dollars. The official language is slovenian but there are some small areas where people speak hungarian or Italian. Slovenia is one of the first WTO (World Trade Organization) members, it's a very open country particularly with the European Union, approximately 70% of total exchanges of the country are with other EU members. The part of GDP for international trade is more than 130%. The three predominant commercial partners of Slovenia are Germany, Italy and Croatia. They don't trade with China or countries from other continents, except USA and Russia to a certain extent. Slovenia manufactures and exports mostly motor vehicles (8.5%), furniture (6.8%), electrical equipments (5.7%), medicinal and pharmaceutical products (4.5%), clothes (4.4%), paper (3.4%) and iron or steel (3.3%). The fact that Slovenia is a very open country has some disadvantages. Indeed, the country is very sensitive compared to the economic health of its commercial partners.

Extraits

[...] Transition countries of Central and Eastern Europe and the European Union countries are less represented as host countries. Almost 55% of the outward FDI stocks are in manufacturing points more than in 1994. The industries that account the most in outward FDI are chemicals and chemical products, machinery and equipment, food products and beverages, and fabricated metal products. Apart from those sectors, Slovenian investors are most active in financial services, retail trade and other business activities. III Marketing's approach Presentation With the majority of European countries, Slovenia is also facing some common demographic trends such as low birth rates (one of the lowest in EU - in 2005) and consequently ageing of population due to the rise in life expectancy ( 74.1 years for men and 81.3 years for women in 2005). [...]

[...] - sectoral limitations”: Foreign investors can't invest in any business related with armaments unless they have the approval of the Government. - real-estate investment”: Slovenian and other European residents are free to own real estate in Slovenia with a principle of reciprocity. All those advantages and few obligations permitted to Slovenia to attract a lot of investors. But who are those foreign countries that come in Slovenia? And in which sectors? Frame of the Foreign Direct Investment Investors from European Union countries dominate FDI in Slovenia. [...]

[...] At 54 per cent, the figure for Germany is in the lower half. Only in the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Italy did the majority of people doubt that advertisements convey useful information about the products they are advertising. Celebrities make advertisement more appealing: Overall, advertisement with celebrities attracts attention, especially in Portugal. Over 80 per cent of Portuguese respondents believed that ads for anything from wine gums to cars are more popular if a celebrity from TV or radio is advertising the product. [...]

[...] Public holidays November: 11, San Martin December 6th : San Nicolas December 25th : Christmas December 26th : Independence slovenian day December 31th : San Sylvestre + the four Sundays before Christmas. Unemployment rate Fig Unemployment rate Country risks COFACE ranks country ratings on seven risk levels: A1, A2, A3, A3, C and in the order of increasing risk. The seven risk families are: Growth vulnerability Foreign currency liquidity crisis External over indebtedness Sovereign financial vulnerability Banking sector's fragilities Geopolitical and Governance vulnerabilities Company payment behaviour. The country risk rating by the COFACE for Slovenia is A2[2]. [...]

[...] Foreign investments will be dealt as national investment if it can be considered as coming from a resident of Slovenia. There are many ways to be considered as a resident. A company registered, or with one of its branches, in Slovenia in a profitable business could be considered as resident. A person with a permanent residence in Slovenia, or who is at least 6 months per year in the country will be considered as resident too, as Slovenian working in diplomatic missions abroad. [...]