Following the morning's working consultation, Prime Minister Janez Janša met with the Mayor of Ormož, Danijel Vrbnjak. Persons aged 65 and over represent more than one fifth of total population in Ormož. The working age population is also decreasing in the municipality. The data show that the Municipality of Ormož is facing major economic and social problems, is more or less stagnating in terms of development, but that there are development opportunities for the development of the economy using areas suitable for economic activity. The Prime Minister and the mayor discussed the co-financing of investments in the region in primary healthcare and infrastructure, as well as various projects currently underway in the Municipality of Ormož.

After a short visit to Ormož Castle, the Prime Minister told the local media that Ormož was getting back on its feet. "Investments originate from various sources, both national and European, and in the next few years they will provide sufficient funds, which will significantly accelerate economic upswing, resulting in more well-paid jobs," the Prime Minister said. He also highlighted the construction of housing and investment in infrastructure. However, according to the Prime Minister all these funds would be of no use if there were no people who knew how to plan. "Funds can only be spent productively where they can be planned, secured and executed on time," the Prime Minister said. He also stressed that the current Government supports coherent regional development and that today's meeting with the mayor and the director of municipal administration focused on projects that were open and those that had already been approved. "There has never been more investment in Ormož than there will be in the next few years," said Janša.

Afterwards, the Prime Minister met with the Mayor of Maribor, Saša Arsenovič, to continue the talks started in November last year, during which they discussed the development opportunities and potential of the Municipality of Maribor.

After a working lunch, the Prime Minister visited SkyLabs, whose medium-term vision is to develop into one of the leading brands in the development of electronic systems and information technology, focusing on robustness and reliability, under the slogan: "Let's change the economics of space". The company has developed key technologies such as Europe's only small software processor core capable of reliable operation in extreme environments, such as space, and a latch-up current limiter (LCL) to prevent current spikes caused by radiation effects. In 2017 and 2018, SkyLabs was awarded a gold award for innovation at the International Trade and Business Fair (MOS). With the financial support of the Ministry of Economic Development and Technology and the European Space Agency, SkyLabs launched the first Slovenian nanosatellite, Trisat, into space in September 2020 – at the same time as the second Slovenian satellite, NEMO-HD. SkyLabs also prepared a practical demonstration of the products it is developing, which will bring Slovenian know-how to space. Furthermore, the company is a development accelerator for the needs of the space industry in Europe. In the margins of the meeting at the company, the Prime Minister underlined that the potential for developing space exploration technology is beyond imagination. In future, this field will definitely attract significant investment.

After visiting SkyLabs, Prime Minister Janša also met with the management of the Maribor Faculty of Electrical Engineering, Computer Science and Informatics, where they talked mainly about digitalisation and the faculty's activities in this field. The faculty boasted of developing new breakthrough technologies and pushing the boundaries of miniaturisation, highlighting the implementation of the world’s smallest optical pressure sensor. They also pointed to the faculty’s work in the field of cyber security and cooperation in cyber security competence centres. The faculty is also intensely involved in the digitisation of various processes, where they also make use of artificial intelligence. The faculty management highlighted projects on remote diagnostics, navigation for people with special needs, the project of monitoring agricultural production and the economics of farming, the project of monitoring forest development and tree growth. They also touched upon the work on Slovenian space technologies and the high level of miniaturisation in space. The faculty’s staff are also pioneers in decoding neural codes in a non-invasive way.

During his visit to the faculty, the Prime Minister visited two more laboratories: the laboratory for electronic and information systems, which developed the first Slovenian nanosatellite TRISAT, and the laboratory for optoelectric and sensor systems, where the world's smallest pressure sensor was developed a few years ago.

At a meeting with the faculty’s staff, Prime Minister Janša stressed that space is by far the largest site for new breakthrough opportunities. “We see Maribor as a generator of development,” he added. He also pointed out that a significant amount of funds will be available in the coming years from the Recovery and Resilience Fund and highlighted the great potential that is required for a successful digital transformation in the coming years. He also expressed the opinion that, in future, we should focus mainly on what should be done to ensure young people stay in Slovenia.

In a public debate with mayors, businessmen and development actors in the region, the Prime Minister stressed that when one speaks about development, one should talk about development that keeps young people in Slovenia, particularly the educated ones. “Podravska is the country’s second largest region and has the largest number of vineyards and the largest agricultural area,” the Prime Minister mentioned a few statistics. He also spoke about the national plan for recovery and resilience, which is expected to be approved tomorrow during the European Commission's visit to Slovenia. “I want to stress that large amounts of funds will be available at the beginning of the economic recovery since the funds will be allocated to the areas that have programmes already in place,” said the Prime Minister. “This region ranks second in Slovenia in terms of foreign investment, which means that the region’s potential is recognised by foreign investors,” added Prime Minister Janša.

In the conclusion, he said that certain anti-Covid restrictions would still remain in place, but that in public life they have mainly been lifted. “We have every opportunity not to tighten these measures in the future, not to restrict public life, but there is a similar danger as last year, as a new wave with the delta variant is approaching, where 60% vaccination rate is no longer enough,” said the Prime Minister, and added that Slovenia had sufficient quantities of various types of vaccines to minimise the side effects of vaccination, so that there is no reason not to vaccinate the population and prevent a severe autumn wave of the epidemic.