In 1991, it was necessary to work 13 minutes for a kilo of potatoes and 14 for a litre of milk, while now only half the time is required for that, which shows that quality of living has improved, he said.
However, because of declining births, the number of inhabitants over the past 24 years has increased by only 62,000 because it is impossible for young families to plan a family, Smrekar said, adding that the number of marriages had dropped from 16,000 in 1965 to 6,500 last year.
Between 1960 and 1991, Slovenia's population rose from 1.6 million to two million.
The improvement of living standards in recent decades is also reflected in the number and brands of personal cars. In 1991, Slovenians had 590,000 cars, most of them domestic, while today there are more than a million, mostly German and French. Cars are on average nine years old as new car purchases have markedly dropped since the 2009 economic crisis.