President Nelson Mandela, accompanied by Foreign Minister Alfred Nzo, will visit Uganda, Germany and Switzerland from 25-30 January 1999. President Nelson Mandela will visit Uganda on 25 and 26 January 1999. The occasion will afford him the opportunity to further cement ties between South Africa and Uganda and discuss regional issues and other matters of common interest. South Africa is a major investor in Uganda and trade relations with this East African partner are expanding rapidly. President Mandela will also open a newly completed sport stadium outside Kampala, which will be named after him.
President Mandela will then pay a private visit to Baden-Baden in Germany on 28 January 1999 to receive the prestigious "Deutsche Medien Preis" 1998, presented by a German media research company, "Media Control". It is an internationally acknowledged prize honouring prominent newsmakers. Previous recipients have included Presidents Mitterand, Rabin, Arafat, Jeltsin, Chancellor Kohl and King Hussein.
President Mandela will also meet with the new German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder on the same day.
The President will bestow the Order of Good Hope on Juergen Schrempp, Chairman of Daimler Chrysler and the South African Honorary Consul-General in the German Federal States of Baden Wuerttemberg, Rhineland-Palatinate and Saarland, since 1995, in recognition of his outstanding services to South Africa.
Mrs Graca Machel will accompany the President and travel to Strassbourg on 28 January 1999 to receive the North-South Prize from the North-South Centre, European Centre for Global Interdependence and Solidarity, Council of Europe.
President Mandela will also attend the annual World Economic Forum (WEF) meeting in Davos, Switzerland, from 29-30 January 1999. The World Economic Forum counts eminent international business people among its members and the Davos meeting brings together these CEO's with heads of state and government and other senior politicians from all over the world.
The South African Government has, for the past few years, been an institutional member of the Geneva-based World Economic Forum and has been an active participant in its activities at senior political level, especially the Davos Annual Meeting. President Mandela has attended a number of these meetings since 1992 and will use this opportunity to bid farewell to these business leaders.
The South African business community will be widely represented at the WEF and will also attend the Davos meeting.
President Mandela will also meet with the President of Swiss Confederation, Ruth Dreyfuss, the first woman to hold this position, during this visit.
ISSUED BY THE DEPARTMENT OF FOREIGN AFFAIRS: PRETORIA
20 JANUARY 1999