(Updates with quote, details, background)
LJUBLJANA, March 11 (Reuters) - Credit activity in Slovenia is picking up and there is no need to issue another sovereign bond 'at present', Finance Minister France Krizanic said on Wednesday.
"The government at present has 2 billion euros ($2.55 billion) placed in our banking system over the short-term and this proved to be enough, credit activity is slowly rising," Krizanic told a news conference.
"If additional need would show, we would go for another (bond) issue," he added.
Slovenia issued a 1 billion euro ($1.28 billion) eurobond in January and Krizanic said in February another issue of about the same size was possible in March.
Since the start of the year, the government also issued a total of 876 million euros of treasury bills with maturities of up to 1 year.
The government will this year spend at least an extra 600 million euros ($765.3 million) to soften the impact of the global crisis.
Last week the government approved state guarantees of 2.5
billion euros for a syndicated bond issue planned by the largest
local bank, Nova Ljubljanska Banka (NLB), which is 30.6 percent
owned by Belgian banking and insurance group KBC
Krizanic said the bank does not have to use the guarantee in "one package".
The bank told Reuters in February it plans a bond issue in the amount of about 1 billion euros by the end of June but the government has indicated the issue is likely to take place in March or April.
Slovenia's economy will contract by at least one percent in 2009, the head of an International Monetary Fund mission told Reuters on Wednesday and urged the country to keep a lid on public sector wages.
He also said he was not worried by the rising budget deficit in Slovenia, seen widening to some 3.4 percent of the GDP this year from around 0.1 percent in 2008, saying this was mainly due to the government's stimulus package for the economy.
(Reporting by Marja Novak, Editing by Zoran Radosavljevic and Ron Askew)