Composer, conductor and jazz musician Urban Koder has died, his family told the STA on Wednesday. Koder was honoured last December with the Silver Order of Merit by President Borut Pahor for leaving a notable mark on Slovenian theatre, film, radio and music.

An elastomer production facility which Sumitomo's Swiss subsidiary Lonstroff is building in Slovenia is on schedule, with production to be launched in October. The construction site in Logatec was on Wednesday visited by Economy Minister Zdravko Počivalšek and Japanese multinational Sumitomo Rubber Industries' representatives.

President Borut Pahor and his Cypriot counterpart Nikos Anastasiadis called for enhancing the relationship between the two countries and urged compliance with international law and decisions of international tribunals during what was the first official visit by a Cypriot president to Slovenia in 12 years.

After the Constitutional Court recently decreed a reform of the electoral law to re-establish the one- person-one-vote rule, the new chief justice Rajko Knez told the STA in an interview that introducing a preference vote in the general election would go in the right direction.

Exports by Slovenian companies were up by 9.1% in November 2018 year-on-year to EUR 2.79bn, while imports were up by 8.2% to EUR 2.8bn, the Statistics Office reported on Wednesday. While exports increased more than imports, a trade deficit was nevertheless recorded last November, amounting to EUR 6m.

Boštjan Vasle will start his six-year term as Slovenia's new central bank governor on Wednesday. The long-serving head of the macroeconomic forecaster IMAD was appointed the fifth governor of Banka Slovenije by the parliament in December and is succeeding Boštjan Jazbec, who took a job on the EU's Single Resolution Board in May.

President Borut Pahor will consult parliamentary parties about their support for human rights ombudsman candidates between Wednesday and Friday. Peter Svetina, a special needs pedagogue, enjoys the most support: he has the backing of coalition parties and the conservative New Slovenia (NSi), and is also an acceptable candidate for the Left.