In an econ­o­my where ris­ing costs are squeez­ing mar­gins and con­sumers are spend­ing more care­ful­ly, build­ing a high-end restau­rant is a cal­cu­lat­ed risk.  

New­ly-elect­ed pres­i­dent of the T&T Man­u­fac­tur­ers’ As­so­ci­a­tion (TTMA) Emil Ramkissoon said the or­gan­i­sa­tion’s leg­isla­tive com­mit­tee con­tin­ues to mon­i­tors leg­is­la­tion which can po­ten­tial­ly af­fect its mem­ber­ship such as Pub­lic Pro­cure­ment and Dis­pos­al of Prop­er­ty Bill, a piece of leg­is­la­tion the TTMA has pub­licly cham­pi­oned as a cor­ner­stone for eco­nom­ic trans­paren­cy.

Massy Dis­tri­b­u­tion Trinidad has an­nounced a strate­gic part­ner­ship with Uma­mi In­cor­po­rat­ed of Guyana to dis­trib­ute its pre­mi­um range of “Made in Guyana” sauces and condi­ments across T&T.

While there have been more food park out­lets open­ing in re­cent months, there have been some shake ups at some more es­tab­lished lo­ca­tions.

An an­nounce­ment will be made soon con­cern­ing the fu­ture of the Hilton Trinidad and Con­fer­ence Cen­tre, but dis­cus­sions be­tween the Hilton group and the Gov­ern­ment of T&T are on­go­ing, Min­is­ter of Land & Le­gal Af­fairs Sad­dam Ho­sein said yes­ter­day.

Just a cou­ple weeks ago, most peo­ple, if asked to lo­cate the Strait of Hor­muz on a map, would not know where to place the mark. The out­break of hos­til­i­ties be­tween the US and Is­rael on one hand, and Iran on the oth­er, has brought this nar­row pas­sage be­tween Iran and the Ara­bi­an Penin­su­la in­to sharp fo­cus. Yet most peo­ple don’t have a full ap­pre­ci­a­tion of how this sit­u­a­tion will im­pact their dai­ly lives.

Tra­di­tion­al­ly, scrubs are worn by peo­ple in the med­ical pro­fes­sion. But Dr Ayan­na Miller, founder and CEO of Pro­fash­ion­al Scrubs, has tak­en her vi­sion for her prod­ucts be­yond the hos­pi­tal wards and the emer­gency rooms. Her styl­ish scrubs, footwear and ac­ces­sories have found their way in­to beau­ty sa­lons and oth­er spaces where its wear­ers need com­fort and dura­bil­i­ty be­cause they work long hours and move around a lot.

For many pro­fes­sion­als across the Caribbean, the hir­ing process can feel con­fus­ing and un­pre­dictable. Can­di­dates up­date their ré­sumés, high­light their ex­pe­ri­ence, and ap­ply for mul­ti­ple op­por­tu­ni­ties, yet many still strug­gle to move for­ward in re­cruit­ment process­es.

The Hilton Trinidad & Con­fer­ence Cen­tre is un­der mount­ing pres­sure, with un­cer­tain­ty sur­round­ing its fu­ture in­ten­si­fy­ing as a long-de­layed $400 mil­lion up­grade pro­gramme re­mains un­ex­e­cut­ed and ne­go­ti­a­tions with in­ter­na­tion­al hote­lier Hilton con­tin­ue.

Busi­ness lead­ers be­lieve that the lat­est reg­is­tra­tion dri­ve to doc­u­ment all il­le­gal im­mi­grants in T&T from dif­fer­ent parts of the world will help boost the busi­ness sec­tor and econ­o­my in gen­er­al.

In the wake of re­cent or­gan­i­sa­tion­al changes and on­go­ing op­er­a­tional chal­lenges, it is im­per­a­tive that the com­pa­ny’s strate­gic arm is ad­e­quate­ly equipped to pro­vide ef­fec­tive over­sight, strong lead­er­ship, and pur­pose­ful di­rec­tion. This is achieved, in part, by en­sur­ing that gov­er­nance struc­tures are ad­e­quate­ly in­sti­tut­ed in the form of ef­fec­tive risk man­age­ment process­es, ro­bust in­ter­nal con­trol sys­tems, an em­bed­ded eth­i­cal frame­work, clear­ly de­fined poli­cies and pro­ce­dures, ap­pro­pri­ate del­e­ga­tion of au­thor­i­ty, trans­par­ent re­port­ing lines, and a fo­cus on stake­hold­er ex­pec­ta­tions and sus­tain­abil­i­ty.

Con­cerns about the in­con­sis­tent pay­ment of VAT as well as the lim­it­ed con­sul­ta­tion with the busi­ness com­mu­ni­ty were brought to the fore dur­ing the Trinidad and To­ba­go Man­u­fac­tur­ers As­so­ci­a­tion’s (TTMA) Lead­er­ship Dis­cus­sion and Net­work­ing Event at the Hy­att Re­gency yes­ter­day.