Slovenia Could Gain From Brexit Relocations

By , 15 May 2018, 14:33 PM Business
Slovenia Could Gain From Brexit Relocations publicdomainpictures.com Petr Kratochvil

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STA, 15 May 2018 - Brexit could become an opportunity for Slovenia, a debate discussing the UK's exit from the EU heard in Ljubljana on Tuesday. Some businesses are relocating not only to western but also to central and eastern Europe, where Slovenia has a competitive advantage, according to acclaimed economist Mojmir Mrak. 

"Slovenia has become relatively more interesting for foreign investors in the past two years," Mrak said at the event organised by the British-Slovenian Chamber of Commerce.

In this vein, Economic Development and Technology Minister Zdravko Počivalšek invited British companies to take part in privatisation of state-owned companies in Slovenia.

While Brexit could become an opportunity for Slovenia, Mrak is concerned about ongoing negotiations. He said that nothing is settled until everything is settled. The deal will have to include economic, political and security elements and might be a tough nut to crack.

Meanwhile, Caroline Wilson, the Europe director at the British Foreign Office, and David Brozina, the director general for EU affairs at the Slovenian Foreign Ministry, both expressed the view that Brexit negotiations were too slow.

Miroslav Marchev, the boss of Pricewaterhouse Coopers Ljubljana office, said that Brexit talks did not have a significant effect on the business world. But some nervousness can be detected due to unpredictability of the situation, he said.

Sophie Honey, the British ambassador to Slovenia, showed optimism, saying that things were usually the most complicated before the end.

The most important thing will be to keep things as simple as possible, according to Jim Walsh, the boss of glassworks Steklarna Hrastnik.

Brozina pointed out that matters will not be as simple as they are now, but none of the debate participants, including him, had major concerns about future business cooperation with the UK.

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