ABSTRACT
Contemporary Slovenia is located in the northwestern part of the Balkan Peninsula, and has borders with Italy, Austria, Hungary, and Croatia. It is a small country with an area of 20,251 square kilometers and population of two million. With 90.1% of its inhabitants being Slovene, the country was ethnically the most homogeneous among the republics and autonomous provinces of former Yugoslavia. Slovenia was the richest republic in exYugoslavia and its per capita GDP was more than two and a half times higher than the Yugoslav average. At the beginning of the 1980s with only 8.3% of the population of then Yugoslavia, Slovenia was producing 18% of the Yugoslav GDP and accounted for 25% of Yugoslavia's total exports. Some 33% of all Yugoslav goods exported to Western markets were produced in the Republic of Slovenia. Slovenia's contribution was 25% of the total revenue of the Federal Budget2.
