Weekly Review of Slovenian Business & Economy from 25 to 31 October

Ljubljana, 2 November - Top news this week came from Slovenia's largest bank, Nova Ljubljanska banka (NLB), whose chairman Marko Voljc tendered his resignation to the supervisory board in the wake of strong criticism because of bank's problems with its IT system. In its autum economic forecast the European Commission anticipated Slovenia's economic growth at 2.1 percent in 2003 and at 3.1 percent in 2004, while the national Statistics Office revealed that the country's inflation rate hit 0.3 percent in October. In other news, the government decided to launch a procedure to grant Renault EU-compatible state aid amounting to 10 percent of the investment value, about EUR 37m, in a bid to keep the French car maker in Slovenia.