The awards were given out by the SPIRIT agency in Brdo pri Kranju on Tuesday evening, rewarding excellence in R&D and business results; long-term presence in the region; the best employer; and a new greenfield investment into a logistics centre.

RLS, a Komenda-based producer of advanced magnetic rotary and linear motion sensors, received the award in the category of R&D and excellent business results.

In 2017, the company had 135 employees and posted a revenue of EUR 21m, up 18% on 2016, with value added per employee at EUR 99,000.

The company, set up by director and co-owner Janez Novak in 1990, has been co-owned by Great Britain's Renishaw, a world leader in metrology since 2000.

Bosch Rexroth from Škofja Loka, which is part of Germany's group Bosch Rexroth AG, won the award in the category of long-term presence in the region,

The company develops innovative solutions for new mobile services for industry and households, and has been present here since 1998, when the foreign investor, at the time known as Mannesmann Rexroth, set up a company in Železniki.

Last year, it posted EUR 40.5m in revenue, of which 99% was generated abroad, and a net profit of over EUR 1m, boasting value added per employee of EUR 40,400.

The best employer in the region is Fraport Slovenija, the company from Germany's Fraport Group operating Ljubljana's international airport.

Since it acquired Slovenian airport operator Aerodrom Ljubljana in March 2015, Fraport AG has significantly improved business results and started hiring new staff.

With more than 400 workers in 2017, it was one of the largest employers in the region of Gorenjska, north-west, and is planning further hirings.

A special mention for a new greenfield investment into a logistics centre went to logistics company Cargo-Partner from Ljubljana, which is part of the Vienna-based Cargo Partner group.

Having entered Slovenia in 2005, the company launched a EUR 25m investment into the logistics centre in Brnik near Ljubljana airport in August, which is the largest investment at the group level so far.

With 90 employees, Cargo-Partner generated almost EUR 34m in revenue in 2017, with its value added per employee at EUR 45,500.

Eligible for the award were companies with at least 50 employees which had not cut workforce in the past year and which had generated at least EUR 35,000 in added value per employee.

The companies had to be in majority foreign ownership, had to operate with a profit and had to have all their tax obligations settled.

The awards have been conferred together with the Ministry of Economic Development and Technology since 2006 as part of a national strategy to attract FDI.

FDI in Slovenia topped EUR 13.7bn at the end of 2017, up 5.4% over the end of 2016, accounting for 32% of Slovenia's GDP, which is still 25 points below the EU average.