Former German Cabinet Minister Spranger new Ghorfa President

Herr Spranger succeeds Dr. Guenter Rexrodt, also a cabinet minister, for economics, under Chancellor Kohl for 7 years, who died on 19th of August this year.

Carl-Dieter Spranger was born 28 March 1939 in Leipzig. A lawyer by profession, he is a member of the Bundestag since 1972 for Bavaria's conservative CSU party.

He is known to have excellent connections to the top leaders of Germany's industry and finance and, due to his experience as Development Minister, has an intimate knowledge of German-Arab relations.

His first major mission as Ghorfa President will take Herr Spranger to Libya, which has invited a 200-strong German trade delegation, the biggest ever visiting the Arab world, for talks in Tripolis from 9 to 13 January next year. Main subjects will be German-Libyan cooperation in the fields of engineering, water, power, environment, medicine and tourism.

Other members elected to the Presidium of Ghorfa on 22nd of November were Dr. Thomas Bach, a board member of Siemens Switzerland, Dr. Walter Doering, MP for the Free Democrats, an industrialist and former economics minister in the Land Baden-Wuerttemberg, and Klaus Werner Jonas, a local East German politician and MP for the Social Democrats.

Dr. Abdulaziz Al-Mikhlafi, the Secretary General of Ghorfa, told the Assembly that the Association has now 440 members with a growing interest shown particularly by small and medium-size businesses.

The aim is to have 1000 members from both Germany and the Arab countries by 2008. The auditors advised the Assembly that Ghorfa can boost of a well-balanced budget for 2004.