20 Welcome to Turku in 2005-
VIII UBC General Conference

The City of Turku is proud to host the forthcoming General Conference of UBC in 2005. Although details of the contents and agenda will be announced later, now it is the time to mark the dates in your calendars! -from Thursday, 29 September to Sunday, 2 October 2005!

• We are very proud that UBC has chosen Turku for the venue of the Conference, states Mr Armas Lahoniitty, Mayor of Turku and 1st vice-chairman of UBC. Turku will do its very best to ensure that the meetings as well as technical arrangements will satisfy our colleagues from the Baltic sister cities, he promises.
  
• According to Lahoniitty, Turku has already started preparations to the

General Conference. He says that among topics to be discussed there will be issues such as Logistics in the Baltic Sea Region, including Highways of the Sea, as well as how to strengthen the structures and operating capacity of the UBC to meet the expectations of member cities in the enlarged Europe.

We hope that the Turku Conference will be an important milestone in UBC's development. Our region needs strong structures to tap all the development potential it possesses. For this, we need a stronger UBC, emphasizes Mayor Lahoniitty, who will end his long career after the UBC conference and retire from his post.