2023 POLICY ROADMAP

The Slovenian economy was expected to grow slowly in 2023, with GDP expanding by just under 2%, impacted by the global slowdown which reduced export growth. The inflation rate was just under 8%, so entrepreneurs were faced both with rising costs and weakening export markets.

In 2023 the Slovenian government was trying to control energy prices to reduce inflation, support employment and wage growth to boost consumption, and to prioritize construction investment for flood recovery and expansion. The government’s focus has been on fostering green investments and improving access to finance, particularly for SMEs. This effort is reflected in the strategic development of the capital market, which is aimed at creating a more inclusive and supportive financial environment for businesses.

2023 Framework Conditions Review1

The overall quality of the Slovenian entrepreneurial environment, as assessed by its own national experts and as summarized in the National Entrepreneurial Context Index (NECI), has recovered strongly from the depths of the pandemic. Slovenia’s NECI score was 4.3 in 2021 and increased to 4.8 in both 2022 and 2023. In 2021, that score had placed Slovenia 32nd of the GEM economies; by 2023, the new score placed Slovenia among the top third of GEM economies, helped by the fact that many other economies saw their NECI score decline between 2022 and 2023.

Between 2022 and 2023, Entrepreneurial Framework Condition (EFC) scores for Slovenia changed very little, although eight increased slightly and three decreased. The largest changes were for Government Policy: Support and Relevance, falling from 4.4 to 3.9, for Government Entrepreneurial Programs (from 5.8 to 5.3), while Ease of Entry: Market Dynamics saw its score increase from 6.0 to 6.6.

National experts were asked in 2023 to assess the social support for women entrepreneurs, and those women entrepreneurs’ access to resources compared to their male counterparts. Slovenia was one of just 10 economies in which the assessment for social support (5.0) exceeded that for access to resources (3.5), the former placing Slovenia 11th of the 49 GEM economies, and the latter placing it 47th. There is clearly much work to do to improve access to resources for women entrepreneurs.

2023 Entrepreneurial Activity Review

In the GEM Adult Population Survey (APS), one in five adults in Slovenia reported that their household income had fallen in 2023, a proportion that has been steadily reducing since this question was first asked by GEM in 2020, when it had been two in five.

The profile of entrepreneurship in Slovenia in 2023 appeared close to the European average, with just over one in two adults knowing someone who had started a business recently, and a similar proportion seeing good opportunities to start a business locally. Confidence was fairly high, with just over three in five adults considering themselves to have the skills and experience to start their own business. However, more than two in five of those seeing good opportunities would not start a business for fear it might fail, which may be why the proportion of adults expecting to start a business in the next three years was less than one in six.

The proportion of adults starting or running a new business in Slovenia in 2023 was fairly modest at 7%, down from 8% a year earlier. Men were much more likely than women to be starting a new business, possibly reflecting the difficulties noted above that women face accessing resources compared to men. The level of Established Business Ownership was a little higher than for new entrepreneurship, at 8.8%, implying just under one new business for every established business.

Agreement among new entrepreneurs was about evenly split between the motivations to make a difference in the world (56%) and to build great wealth or very high income (54%). New entrepreneurs were very outward-looking, with more than one in two having customers outside of their own borders, the second highest proportion in GEM 2023. Just under one in two new entrepreneurs expected to use more digital technology in the next six months, while around one in five expected to employ at least another six people over the next five years.

1 A brief description of the GEM approach is given in the footnote on p. 107 of the GEM Global Report.