This week, the Japanese corporation Yaskawa laid the foundation stone for the construction of two new robot assembly and distribution facilities next to its existing robot plant in Kočevje. With the EUR 32 million investment, the company is expanding its activity in Europe, the Middle East and Africa.

Prime Minister Golob noted that although Japan is far away from Slovenia, it is Slovenia's most important Asian partner and cooperation between the two countries has been growing steadily in recent years. He expressed the hope that there will be more such cooperation in the future. He believes that economic development is a generator of new knowledge. "Only with growth in knowledge and innovation can we maintain the global competitiveness of our economy and create added value," he said, adding that the Government is making every effort to realise the vision of integrating both businesses and knowledge and local communities and enterprises. "Together we are creating a better Slovenia," he stressed.

On Saturday, Slovenia will mark the national holiday Day of Uprising against Occupation. The state ceremony will take place on the eve of the holiday in Črnomelj, with the President of the State Council, Marko Lotrič, as the keynote speaker. The idea underpinning the ceremony is best summed up by the statement of the decorated American officer George Wuchinich, a member of the Allied Forces Mission in Bela Krajina: "A nation that fights as resolutely with a rifle as with a book in its hand cannot be defeated." It was in Črnomelj that the Slovenian National Theatre was founded during the Second World War; the company performed complex plays from the Slovenian and world drama treasury, thus corroborating the importance of high culture for national consciousness in the struggle against occupation.