The Chamber of Craft and Small Business of Slovenia, is an umbrella organisation comprising the craft and small business chamber system jointly with 62 regional chambers of craft and small business. It has more than 20,000 members. The Chamber of Craft and Small Business of Slovenia acts and communicates with the public to support and promote the traditional values of its members; hard work, effort, perseverance, honesty, honour, ethics, quality and excellence, and knowledge and innovation. The Chamber advocates preserving the tradition and peculiarities of small business. Since its establishment in late 60sof 20th century the Chamber has been playing an active role as an intermediary between Slovene enterprise community and policy-decision making arena. Still cooperation with the Government, the ministries and the National Assembly in creation of economic policy and co-creating the best possible legislation governing craft, micro, small and medium companies stays the top priority. The core principle in legislation should be “Think Small First”.
The present Chamber of Craft of Slovenia has been active almost last 50 years. Besides representing and defending interest of craftsmen and entrepreneurs in front of government the chamber has been developed a broad scale of different SME consulting services (dissemination of SME policies, assisting SMEs to develop their internationalisation capacity, proving SMEs on different domestic and EU legal framework and provisions concerning their business, awareness raisings campaigns on different topics and etc. The chamber’s task is also to support the enterprises in order to become more competitive on domestic and international markets.
The key role in the Chamber is played by professional sections (guild) because they associate craftsmen from the same profession. The Chamber uses its efforts in Slovenia and Europe to improve the conditions for doing business in craft, micro, small and medium-sized enterprises. Craftsmen and their chamber have become an equal partner in the dialogue with the government and trade unions.