Austria and Switzerland Biggest Investors in Slovenia

Ljubljana, 4 November

Companies from the EU and Switzerland are the biggest foreign investors in Slovenia, according to a report on foreign direct investment (FDI) between 1994 and 2003 that the Bank of Slovenia confirmed Thursday. Slovenian firms, on the other hand, invest mostly in countries of the former Yugoslavia.

Foreigners have invested in 5 percent of all Slovenian companies. At the end of 2003, they held 18.5 percent of the total capital, according to the report.
Investors from the EU accounted for 68.5 percent of all investment. Austria has the biggest share of FDI, worth EUR 1.18bn.
Switzerland is at second place with EUR 1.12bn, a value roughly corresponding the takeover price of drug maker Lek, which was acquired by Novartis in 2002.
Germany is in third place and France places fourth, the Bank of Slovenia said in a news release after Thursday's meeting of the board of governors.
Slovenian enterprises also invested heftily, mostly in Southeast Europe, with cumulative outward FDI topping EUR 1.85bn.
Croatia tops the list of outward FDI with investments worth EUR 609.8m. Although the value of investments in Croatia has been increasing, Croatia's share in overall outward FDI dropped to 33 percent by the end of 2003.
The second most important FDI destination was Bosnia, which had a 11.2-percent share, followed by Serbia-Montenegro.
Broken down by industries, most outward FDI ended up in manufacturing (58.5 percent), chemical industry (18.3 percent), engineering and machinery industries (6.8 percent) and food industry (6.1 percent).

Austria and Switzerland Biggest Investors in Slovenia

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