Preliminary release from the Statistics Office provides insight into Slovenia's latest economic performance, underlining growth and contraction as well as factors driving these trends.
Slovenia's economy experienced an acceleration in growth during the second quarter of the year. The Gross Domestic Product (GDP) expanded by 1.4% compared to the same quarter in the previous year. This growth comes after a 0.8% growth in the first quarter of the year.
Factors driving growth
The growth in GDP was primarily driven by strong performance in the country's exports and a notable trade surplus. Specifically, imports decreased by 8.3%, while exports only decreased by 0.7%. This resulted in a significant trade surplus. The contribution of foreign trade to the headline GDP figure was 6.7 percentage points.
Domestic consumption and capital formation
Despite the positive performance in exports and trade, domestic consumption within the country contracted by 5.4%. Final consumption expenditure remained unchanged, indicating that household spending didn't change significantly. However, fixed capital formation (investment in physical assets) decreased by 20.1%, primarily due to a decrease in inventories.
Capital Formation Breakdown
Gross fixed capital formation, a subset of investment, increased by 9.3%. This increase was largely attributed to higher investment in buildings and structures. However, household consumption expenditure went down by 1.1%, marking the first decline after two years of consecutive growth.
Increase in employment numbers
Total employment in Slovenia during the second quarter of 2023 was reported as 1,093,200 persons. This number represents a 1.2% increase when compared to the same quarter of the previous year (2022). The construction sector was highlighted as the largest contributor to the generation of new jobs.
Source: https://www.sloveniabusiness.eu/business-news/correction-slovenias-gdp-in-second-quarter-up-14
