What is the extent of bilateral trade between the two countries at present, and what steps are being taken to boost the trade figures?

Last year we had again very good 19% growth of Slovenian export to India; in value it means 87 million EUR. Good news for Indian side is that Indian export to Slovenia in volume is approximately triple bigger than import – which means that it reaches over 220 million EUR. Our main task is to see how to organize more B2B trips and arrange more business meetings. Unless the business delegations are headed by a high-ranking official or Minister, companies do not take them seriously. Our focus, therefore, is now towards organizing a business delegation from Slovenia to India that should hopefully be led by our Ministry of Economy in November 2017. We are also working with the Indo-Slovenian Business Forum and Indian chambers of commerce. In February, we had a tourism road show in Delhi, Mumbai and Kolkata which also led to business seminars. We have an Economic Councillor at the Embassy here in New Delhi and we have a network of Honorary Consuls whose main task and obligation is to promote bilateral economic relations, advising companies what to do to promote business, whom to meet and such like things. We want to establish one or two more such Honorary Consuls.

What are the major investment opportunities for Indian businesses in Slovenia?

The primary opportunity is in tourism, I’d say. We’ve had the first generation of Indian tourists over the past ten years, and we’ve realized that they are looking for Indian cuisine when they travel abroad. And in Slovenia Indian restaurants are still rare. The number of tourists from India to Slovenia is growing. Visa applications have doubled since February. When you have tourism, investment doors open up, since some of these tourists could find Slovenia an attractive investment destination as well. We are talking of small investments, like in restaurants, hotels, and in general in the hospitality sector. The other type of tourism one can look at is for spending honeymoons as Slovenian natural beauties are fabulous. We are not yet ready for big Indian destination weddings; we don’t have high-capacity hotels. But no doubt Slovenia’s attraction as a tourism destination is on the rise. We are one of the greenest destinations. For investors and businesses looking at Southern Europe, we have the port of Koper. It is a gateway to both the south and north of Europe. It is the most northern port in south Europe or Mediterranean area. We are part of the European Union. So once goods are customs-cleared at Koper, they are free to travel anywhere within the EU. Investors can look at developing distribution and logistics centres at Koper or nearby.