Slovenia
Economic activity is likely to slow significantly in 2009, driven in particular by a sharp deceleration in investment in construction. The following year, economic growth should return toward trend as both investment and private consumption recover. Headline inflation is expected to subside due to falling commodity prices, although planned public wage increases will exert upward pressure on core inflation.
L’activité économique va probablement connaître un ralentissement significatif en 2009, en particulier sous l’effet de la décélération brutale des investissements dans la construction. L’année suivante, la croissance économique devrait renouer avec son rythme tendanciel au fur et à mesure du redressement de l’investissement et de la consommation. L’inflation globale devrait céder du terrain sous l’effet de la baisse des prix des matières premières, même si les hausses de salaires prévues dans la fonction publique risquent d’exercer une pression à la hausse sur l’inflation sous-jacente.
Slovenia has sustained a relatively high level of public expenditure on research and development and a relatively large proportion of employees and value added in high technology manufacturing compared to the EU average. However, innovation among SMEs is relatively low compared to the average in EU member states. This chapter reviews the Slovenian government’s innovation policy framework and the extensive programme to promote knowledge transfer from institutions of higher education and research to the business sector. The review covers policies towards SME incubators, technology parks, technology centres, technology networks, industrial clusters, financial subsidies for high technology SMEs, and the mobility programme for young researchers. The research is based on documentary evidence and interviews, and presents case studies of an innovative university-based incubator and a successful industrial cluster in the automotive industry. It concludes with a number of suggestions for policy measures to improve the transfer of knowledge from HEIs to SMEs.
2005: Investment Funds and Management Companies Act; provides conditions under which investment funds and management companies are founded; regulates the way they are run and supervised and pension mutual funds management.
The process of building new forms of governance is of critical importance in Slovenia, where reforms have established regional development partnership structures to foster economic and employment development throughout the country. The comparison of Slovenian achievements with Irish and Finnish ones indicates that governance structures should link urban centres and the rural regions surrounding them to help to determine the specialisation of regions and stimulate their capacity for innovation. It also suggests that there is a lack of capacity in both technical and more strategic, bargaining and consensus building skills. The Slovenian analysis also points to the roles and responsibilities of national governments in providing a suitable strategic framework for local and regional initiatives and for setting up institutional structures that favour an implementation of policies that is consistent with shared goals locally.