Working
Venlo
City of enterprise at the Meuse
Venlo is the most important link between the Randstad region in the West of the Netherlands and central Europe. By taking full advantage of its favourable location, Venlo has grown into the third-largest logistics hotspot of the Netherlands, after Rotterdam and Amsterdam Airport Schiphol.
And as well as logistics, Venlo’s strengths also include agrofood, knowledge‑intensive and manufacturing industry and retail. The city’s strong urban economy is built on these four key pillars.
Knowledge-intensive industry
Measured by the number of people employed in industry out of the total working population, Venlo takes fifth place out of the fifty largest towns and cities in the Netherlands. And as far as knowledge-intensive industries are concerned, Venlo holds an even stronger position with the No. 2 place!
The most important and best known knowledge-intensive company in Venlo is Océ, which forms part of the Canon Group. It has its own campus in Venlo-North, with an extensive R&D center with hundreds of highly educated specialists. Other knowledge-intensive companies in Venlo operate in areas such as turbine technology, coatings and coating systems, machine and equipment building, glass and many others.
Logistics
Logistiek.nl, the leading website for logistics professionals in the Netherlands, has made a ranking of logistics hotspots each year since 2005. Venlo has been rated as the most important Logistics Hotspot of the Netherlands nine times, and as runner-up on four occasions.
Huge volumes of goods find their way via Venlo to the Central European hinterland. This makes Venlo Europe’s most important growth region in terms of logistics.
The ideal location, the excellent accessibility and the ample availability of space for large warehousing complexes are all unique advantages of Venlo. Even more important is the fact that the required knowledge and expertise for efficient management of goods flows are available here. As well as that, Venlo offers all the required supporting services, from customs facilities to logistics education right up to graduate level.
Agrofood
The south-east of the Netherlands is the country’s second horticultural area, and together with the German border region it is Europe’s largest. Venlo and its surrounding area are the focal point of the region.
Horticulture in Venlo is surrounded by a network of related companies, organizations and institutes that are active in the supply chain, processing, packaging, trading, transport & agrologistics etc. A large part of these companies are located in the Fresh Park Venlo agrofood business park.
To further strengthen the economic interests of the agrofood sector, Venlo actively supports innovative and knowledge-intensive companies. This promotes collaboration and synergies between business organizations (in all sectors), education, research and government. Brightlands Campus Greenpark Venlo will play a key role in these developments: acting as an incubator, laboratory and testbed for new ideas and developments in the agrofood sector.
Retail
Venlo is a real shopping city. The friendly, historical inner city draws many visitors from the city itself, but also from the surrounding region and the German hinterland. You’ll find thousands of tourists and shoppers in the city at weekends and on the German public holidays, all of them helping to create a real international atmosphere.
In recent years Venlo has made big investments in its inner city. The Maasboulevard has created a modern extension of the shopping area and a new route for visitors to follow.
The Maaspoort theater and congress center, the Grenswerk popular music venue and the varied selection of restaurants, cafés and bars offer ample choice of entertainment and catering alternatives. Numerous events complete Venlo’s active and lively city center scene.
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