Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad Bisses­sar and En­er­gy Min­is­ter Dr Roodal Mooni­lal yes­ter­day wel­comed the de­ci­sion by the US Of­fice of For­eign As­sets Con­trol (OFAC) to is­sue gen­er­al li­cences 49 and 50 to BP and Shell, among oth­er in­ter­na­tion­al en­er­gy com­pa­nies, to ne­go­ti­ate and en­ter in­to con­tracts to de­vel­op gas fields in Venezuela.

In the wake of news that the US De­part­ment of Trea­sury is­sued OFAC gen­er­al li­cences to BP and Shell, for­mer en­er­gy min­is­ter Stu­art Young has raised ques­tions con­cern­ing the Gov­ern­ment’s ne­go­ti­a­tions with Venezuela.

The ac­qui­si­tion of Massy Dis­tri­b­u­tion (Ja­maica) by Agos­ti­ni Ltd, which is list­ed on the T&T Stock Ex­change, took a sig­nif­i­cant step for­ward yes­ter­day, af­ter the com­pa­ny an­nounced it had re­ceived a state­ment of non-ob­jec­tion from the Fair Trade Com­mis­sion of Ja­maica for the deal.

First Cit­i­zens has be­come the lat­est bank to an­nounce a re­duc­tion of for­eign ex­change lim­it on cred­it cards.

For­mer fi­nance min­is­ter Colm Im­bert has launched a scathing cri­tique on the cur­rent Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) ad­min­is­tra­tion, ac­cus­ing the Gov­ern­ment of pre­sid­ing over an eco­nom­ic con­trac­tion.

Af­ter some ear­ly un­cer­tain­ty, there are signs that the 2026 Car­ni­val will be ex­e­cut­ed as ex­pect­ed.

Car­ni­val ac­com­mo­da­tion in Port of Spain is al­ready in high de­mand ahead of the Feb­ru­ary 16 and 17 fes­tiv­i­ties, with ma­jor ho­tels ei­ther ful­ly booked or of­fer­ing lim­it­ed rooms at pre­mi­um rates, high­light­ing the pres­sure on vis­i­tors try­ing to se­cure last-minute stays.Checks with sev­er­al lead­ing ho­tels re­vealed that from to­day (Feb­ru­ary 12), there are no avail­able rooms in Port-of-Spain.

Car­ni­val week rep­re­sents one of the most in­tense and com­pressed eco­nom­ic pe­ri­ods in T&T’s cal­en­dar. In a mat­ter of days, tens of thou­sands of vis­i­tors ar­rive, spend­ing at a pace that far ex­ceeds a nor­mal busi­ness cy­cle. For lo­cal busi­ness­es, Car­ni­val is not just a cul­tur­al cel­e­bra­tion — it is a short, high-ve­loc­i­ty com­mer­cial win­dow.

Re­cent wage in­creas­es to pub­lic sec­tor work­ers have been iden­ti­fied by the In­ter­na­tion­al Mon­e­tary Fund (IMF) as a po­ten­tial hur­dle for eco­nom­ic growth in T&T in 2026.

They’ve brought you events such as the fan­cy Fete Gala, Boozy Boat, Sun­Sips, Cin­co and JA­VA J’Ou­vert, on the lo­cal scene, and the Tidal Wave boat cruise at Crop Over in Bar­ba­dos. Now, the di­rec­tors of Life Events (Live in Free­dom Every­day) are mak­ing plans to ex­tend the com­pa­ny’s re­gion­al reach to make it one of the en­ter­tain­ment pow­er­hous­es in the Caribbean.

T&T’s cruise sec­tor is fac­ing a dif­fi­cult pe­ri­od, with the 2024/2025 sea­son show­ing a steep drop in ar­rivals.

For­mer Cen­tral Bank gov­er­nor and for­mer fi­nance min­is­ter Win­ston Dook­er­an has said that the re­cent re­port by S&P Glob­al on de­clin­ing liq­uid­i­ty in T&T’s bank­ing sys­tem proves he was right when he pub­lished a pa­per last year say­ing T&T’s econ­o­my is in a “state of dis­e­qui­lib­ri­um.”