Nelson Mandela returned to Soweto, the black South African township synonymous with his long battle against apartheid, for the first in years today to open the largest shopping complex in the southern hemisphere.

The Maponya Mall — named after legendary Sowetan wheeler-dealer businessman Richard Maponya — covers 65,000sq m (700,000sq ft) and houses some 200 stores, including the country’s most up-market names, and an eight-screen cinema complex. It has been hailed as the most significant step in the transformation of the once impoverished area.

Standing in front of large bronze statue of a dying Hector Pieterson - at 12 the youngest victim of the 1976 Soweto student uprising - a beaming Mr Mandela, cut a thick gold ribbon with a pair of long scissors. “With this action, I declare the mall open,” he said to loud applause.

A large, jubilant crowd was on hand to welcome the increasingly frail, Mr Mandela, now 89, back to the township where he once lived and often hid from apartheid agents. His former house is now a museum and visited each day by dozens of tourists.

Mr Mandela, who became South Africa’s first black President in 1994 after 27 years in jail, makes fewer and fewer public appearances and even more rarely ventures in to the townships where he is still revered. Building workers, cleaners and shop assistants waved and cheered enthusiastically as the man they affectionately call Tata (a respectful term for father) Madiba, his clan name.

“To have him back in Soweto even for a short time, is amazing. Nowadays every visit could be his last, so we thank God to be in the presence of this great man,” said Sipho, 32, a Soweto resident. Near by, a middle-aged black woman brushed tears off her cheeks as she watched him shuffle slowly to his seat.

Mr Mandela’s presence was seen as a huge tribute to the self-made Mr Maponya, 82, who said the opening of the Mall was the fulfilment of a 28-year dream.

“I have been one of the sons of this town for a long time, I have seen it grow,” he said in a short address. “Today I deliver you my dream.”

Mr Maponya, who said the mall had created 1,800 jobs, urged Soweto’s one million plus inhabitants to make the most of its state-of-the-art facilities. He said that for years the people of Soweto had contributed to making Johannesburg a great city, but had nothing on their own doorstep.

“I am delivering to you one of the best Malls ever built. Protect and support this establishment, it is yours. I am just a facilitator . . . I have brought the best to the people of Soweto,” he said.

Mr Maponya — who trained as a teacher but found the salaries in black-only schools “derisory” — set up Soweto’s first real dairy in the 1950s. He moved on to beer supplies and then into the rag trade, where an Afrikaner boss made him responsible for Kaffir clothes. Kaffir was then the derogatory term used for blacks.

As he spoke today, torrential rains lashed the modern glass-and-chrome building. Onlookers saw the first of the southern hemisphere’s summer rain storms as a blessing for the new building.

Amos Masondo, Mayor of the City of Johannesburg, of which Soweto is part, said that the mall was more than just a facelift for the township, but part of an important and radical transformation that has seen thousands of trees planted, roads paved, new houses built and a five-star hotel soon to be opened on the refurbished Freedom Square.

A study had shown that of some 4.2 billion Rands (£320 million) spent on consumer goods in 2004 by Soweto’s residents — many of whom are now part of a burgeoning black middle class — only 25 per cent was spent in the township because of a lack of retail outlets and other facilities, he said.

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