Ljubljana, 25 January (STA) - Slovenia's business sentiment indicator improved 1.4 percentage points in January to stand 12.7 points above the long-term average. Despite the monthly improvement, it is still 3.7 points lower year-on-year.

Contributing to the improvement on the monthly level were higher indicators for retail (up 0.7 points), manufacturing (by 0.6 points), consumers (by 0.3 points) and construction (by 0.1 points).

The only indicator that was down in January compared to December was the confidence indicator for services (down by 0.3 points), the Statistics Office said on Friday.

The statisticians attribute the deterioration of the index at the annual level mostly to the 2.4-point reduction of the confidence index for manufacturing.

Also down were the indices for consumers (by 1 point), retail and construction (by 0.2 points each), while the impact of the confidence index for services was positive (up by 0.3 points).

Companies still mention the shortage of skilled staff as the main limiting factor, in addition to the insufficient domestic and foreign demand and the shortage of workers in general.