“In 2023, the European Commission designated the Utrecht metropolitan area as the most competitive region in Europe. The region stands out in particular in areas relating to health and sustainability. Only not everybody knows this. That is why, Economic Board Utrecht, launched the positioning of Utrecht as the ‘Heart of Health’ in 2023. This positioning was welcomed by all our board members. Jaarbeurs played a special role in the development and promotion of ‘Utrecht, Heart of Health’. I can certainly say that Jaarbeurs was one of the driving forces in this repositioning of Utrecht. Which is logical as health and sustainability are in Jaarbeurs’s DNA. For instance, Jaarbeurs makes a huge impact every year with the Dutch Health Week. Jaarbeurs’s expertise, hard work, and involvement were very valuable. As the director of Economic Board Utrecht, I am very grateful for this. We were able to make good progress together in 2023 in the further development of ‘Utrecht, Heart of Health’. Therefore, I am looking forward to promoting the region further in 2024 by working together with other regions in the Netherlands and abroad. In this way, we work together to realise our ambition: To make a maximum contribution as a region to a healthy, sustainable world.”