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Slovenia's largest exporters
Adria Mobil's motorhomes - one of the most popular Slovenian export products. / Photo: Adria Mobil

The largest Slovenian exporter in 2023 is home appliances manufacturer Gorenje followed by pharmaceutical companies Krka and Lek.

Gorenje, a subsidiary of Chinese Hisense, was the largest Slovenian exporter in 2023 with a total value of exports exceeding 2.4 billion euros. The home appliances manufacturer is also a key European manufacturing base for Hisense TV sets. A list of the nation’s best exporters was compiled by business newspaper Finance. The second largest exporter on the list is generic drug manufacturer Krka with 1.6 billion of revenues created outside the home market. Krka is closely followed by its arch-rival Lek, a part of the Sandoz group. Lek sales outside of Slovenia exceeded 1.5 billion euros. The fourth place is occupied by Revoz, Renault’s factory in Novo mesto. Last year the exports of Revoz reached 819 million euros – this figure is expected to grow significantly once the new electric Twingo models start to roll out of the Novo mesto plant in 2025. The fifth largest exporter is aluminium manufacturer Impol with 770 million euros.

Overall, Slovenia’s exports in 2023 reached 55 billion euros. In a decade the value has grown by more than 100 percent: back in 2000, the total value was still only 9.5 billion euros. Slovenia’s largest exporting market is Switzerland – yet mostly due a crucial logistics hub belonging to Swiss pharma giant Novartis, situated near Ljubljana’s airport. If we ignore the cargo passing through this large warehouse, first place belongs firmly to Germany. The total value of Slovenian goods reaching German customers has reached 7.4 billion euros. Germany is followed by Italy (4.7 billion), Croatia (4.2 billion), Austria (3.1 billion) and France (1.8 billion euros of exports).

The main exporting products are:

  1. electrical machinery and equipment (including home appliances), 
  2. machinery and mechanical appliances
  3. vehicles and automotive components
  4. pharmaceuticals, and 
  5. metal products

Despite the variety of different groups, most of the bestselling products belong to rather narrow market niches. And even though most of the exports are made by large companies (according to Finance the 10 largest exporters account for 39 percent of the total value of exports), innovative tech and niche-oriented SMEs play a crucial role in the nation’s exports. For example, precision and medical instruments developers are small or mid-size, they are often global leaders in a very narrow niche, yet together they generate almost 1 billion euros of exports. Many automotive component producers are also niche oriented specialists with strong R&D working closely with their customers. Specialisation seems to be a key word for Slovenia’s top exporters. This is also true of companies like SIJ Acroni: Slovenian steel producer which focuses on high value-added materials used for the most demanding applications in nuclear reactors, the aerospace industry, and similar. An interesting niche with a strong Slovenian presence is motor home manufacturing with two companies among the nation's 20 largest exporters.

The Slovenian economy depends strongly on exports. According to the World Bank and the UNCTAD, the value of Slovenian exports per capita reached 40,500 US dollars, which puts Slovenia in 16th place in the world (it should be noted that the World Bank uses a different methodology and definition of exports than Slovenian statistics). This value is also far above the EU average (22,620 US dollars) and puts Slovenia behind only the Benelux countries, Ireland, Denmark, and Malta. Unsurprisingly, a strong reliance on exports seems to be the fate of the small markets. Slovenia is no exception.

Slovenia's largest exporters in 2023

Rank Company Industry Value of export in million EUR
1 Gorenje Home appliances 2,454
2 Krka Pharmaceuticals 1,608
3 Lek Pharmaceuticals 1,525
4 Revoz Cars 819
5 Impol Aluminium 770
6 Geoplin Gas 578
7 Adria Mobil Mobile homes 562
8 SIJ Acroni Steel 419
9 Mahle Electric Drives Automotive 397
10 LTH Castings Automotive 381
11 Hella Saturnus Automotive 345
12 Hidria Automotive, HVC products 322
13 BSH Home appliances 321
14 GA Adriatic Car retail 319
15 Talum Aluminium 293
16 Interenergo Energy 270
17 Goodyear Slovenia Tires 247
18 TAB Batteries 233
19 Helios TBLUS Paints 233
20 Carthago Mobile homes 229
Source: Export figures, Newspaper Finance, September 2024

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