The article evaluates the functioning of the national commercial diplomacy of Slovenia and Serbia through the eyes of those in charge of it, i.e. commercial attaches. The purpose of the article is to identify the key problems of national commercial diplomacy in a comparative perspective. To achieve this, the authors of the article conducted a survey that points out three perilous issues. First, although Slovenia and Serbia in the last 20 years have developed (economically and politically) in a different way, their commercial diplomatic efforts experience similar characteristics. Secondly, the main problem of commercial diplomacy in both countries is its structural fragmentation. Thirdly, an important problem of commercial diplomacy is that it changes after every election in each country. Real issues like enhancing its efficiency are marginalized, since it is never known how much time the established system will last. Therefore a first step in overcoming the inefficiency of commercial diplomacy is to establish a stable structure, which would be independent of changes in the national political system.
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