The Slovenian sawmill industry has undergone numerous changes since the beginning of economic crisis in 2008, mainly due to the decline in production in the furniture and construction industry. Consequently the sawmill sector struggled for survival instead of investing in new technologies and implementing innovations. In the framework of the international IDWOOD project (taking place between 2012 and 2014), aiming to promote and foster innovation and competitiveness of SMEs in the wood sector in the SEE area, an analysis of the Slovenian sawmill sector was carried out in order to identifying major gaps. Concurrently similar analysis was also carried out in the neighbour regions of the SEE area (i.e. Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina and Serbia). In the current article we would like to present the findings of the performed study. The results were compared with the situation of the sawmill industry in other SEE regions and advanced European countries.
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