In the following discussion the author focuses on the Slovenian perceptions of the Yugoslav economic space. The basic thesis states that the Slovenian perception of the Yugoslav economic space was not uniform, but ambivalent. It involved seeking balance between two complex and structurally different choices. On one hand there was self-sufficiency and comfortableness of the undemanding and, in the developmental and dynamic sense, unstimulating Yugoslav market. On the other hand there were demands for the international competitiveness of the Slovenian economy, subject to transferring the competences for the creation of the economic policy to the level of the republic.