A rose-red city.. .
MARRAKESH IS at its best just now, a red-walled city set against the snowy peaks of the High Atlas, where the almond trees are still in blossom. Better still if you can stay in the Mamounia Hotel (grand luxe) at someone else's expense — a taxpayer's, for instance. Your hosts have put the local mendicants and hustlers in the slammer for a week, for this is the signing ceremony for the Gatt and Gats agreements on world trade, and the visiting ministers and high officials must not be disturbed by such peo- ple. It is a great improvement on Punta del Este, Uruguay, where all this started, seven years ago. There it was agreed that free trade should be extended to include finan- cial services, this country's most successful export. So has this great liberalisation hap- pened? Well, no. There is said to be anoth- er year's hard arguing ahead, and then we may see. By then we shall have a brand-new World Trade Organisations to oversee all this. It will need a home, and somewhere for people to come to its annual meetings. The Germans are promoting Bonn, the tedium capital of the Middle Rhine. They have empty government offices there, and no wonder. Marrakesh would be much more agreeable. Book ahead.
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