Greenfield activity spikes
Ljubljana, 5 December - After several years of tentative improvement, 2017 was a bumper year for greenfield investments.
Ribnica
The Slovenian production unit of Yaskawa Electric Corporation.
Photo: Anže Malovrh/STA
Austrian car assembly contractor Steyr Magna launched in October a EUR 146m paint shop near Maribor that is expected to create 400 jobs in the first phase and another 1,500 in the second phase. The combined value of the first two phases is estimated at EUR 450m.
Japan's Sumitomo Rubber Industries picked Logatec, central Slovenia, for a EUR 34m production facility for elastomers. Another Japanese company, Yaskawa Electric, started building a new robot plant in Kočevje in November, having already announced the EUR 25m investment in 2016.
Two more potential foreign investments were still under consideration: the Scottish BSW Timber Group was in talks to build a major sawmill while the Turkish car industry supplier TKG Automotive was considering building a plant near its major client, the Renault assembly plant Revoz.
Towards the end of the year the government adopted a new law on the promotion of investments that is expected to further boost FDI, although it will also let Slovenian firms compete for the same funds.