The SBI TOP index of blue chips on the Ljubljana Stock Exchange closed 0.15% lower at 877.01 points on Thursday. Pharma company Krka (-0.68% to EUR 58.20) was the busiest item, contributing more than EUR 900,000 to the daily turnover of EUR 1.6m.

Slovenia has signed a joint declaration on a draft European directive to combat unfair trading practices which eight EU members adopted at a meeting of agriculture ministers of the Visagrad Group (Slovakia, Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland) as well as Slovenia, Croatia, Bulgaria and Romania.

TAB, the Mežica-based maker of vehicle and stationary batteries, has announced that after last year's record results, it continues to do well this year too, generating EUR 132m in sales revenues in the first half of 2018 and EUR 14m in profit.

The average monthly gross wage in Slovenia in the first half of the year was EUR 1,658 or 3.6% more than in the same period last year nominally, and 2% higher in real terms. The average net wage was at EUR 1,076, which was 3.1% and 1.5% higher year-on-year in nominal and real terms, respectively.

The Velenje-based household appliances maker Gorenje, which is in 95% ownership of China's Hisense, expanded its management board on Thursday with six representatives of the owner, with Franjo Bobinac staying at the helm of the management board. Hisense also announced to withdraw Gorenje from the Ljubljana Stock Exchange.

The Infrastructure Ministry has picked a bad time to send the resolution on the energy concept back into public debate, which is expected to take place until 7 September, the newspaper Delo says in Thursday's commentary.

The business newspaper Finance compares in Thursday's commentary the leader of the Left, Luka Mesec, with Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban in that both are advocating a higher minimum wage, while assessing that the minimum wage in Slovenia is at the upper level of a healthy minimum wage.