A Royal Visit to UP

Katharine O’Ehley

Welcome to the rainbow nation!’

With the most anticipated arrival, King Philippe and Queen Mathilde of Belgium departed for South Africa on Wednesday, 22 March for a five-day long state visit. The reasoning for the visit according to the presidential press release is to “expand and strengthen” the relations between the two countries with focal points of investment, trade, tourism and foreign investment.

According to a media release by the University of Pretoria, Her Majesty Queen Mathilde attended the social entrepreneurship roundtable event that discussed sustainable development goals (SDGs) that formed part of the state visit to South Africa. The Department of Science and Innovation announced that His Royalness King Philippe, visited the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) on Thursday for a visit to the indoor energy storage testbed facility.

A second-year education student, Monique van Niekerk said: “It is such an amazing honour for members of the Belgium Royal family to take their time to visit Tuks. I would have never thought that they would visit Tuks and I hope they enjoyed their visit.”