The Gov­ern­ment is mov­ing in­to a crit­i­cal phase of its glob­al eco­nom­ic strat­e­gy, as a high-lev­el del­e­ga­tion from the Unit­ed Arab Emi­rates (UAE) ar­rives in this coun­try to­mor­row.

De­spite the chal­leng­ing eco­nom­ic land­scape, chief op­er­at­ing of­fice of the Co-op­er­a­tive Cred­it Union League of T&T, Di­anne Joseph, is as­sur­ing the pub­lic that cred­it unions across the coun­try con­tin­ue to en­list new mem­bers.

The Res­i­dence, a well-known lim­ing spot at One Wood­brook Place, in Port of Spain, closed its doors late last year af­ter years of op­er­a­tion. Its shut­down is no longer an iso­lat­ed in­ci­dent but part of a widen­ing con­trac­tion across T&T’s food, bar, and en­ter­tain­ment in­dus­try, as op­er­a­tors strug­gle to ab­sorb sharp in­creas­es in al­co­hol prices and a dou­bling of bar li­cence fees.
At Six­es So­cial Crick­et in the up­stairs part of One Wood­brook Place, own­er Joan­na Ros­tant de­scribes a busi­ness en­vi­ron­ment that has changed dra­mat­i­cal­ly since the new al­co­hol du­ties took ef­fect in Oc­to­ber. The im­pact, she main­tains, is not the­o­ret­i­cal. It is vis­i­ble in emp­ty ta­bles, short­er limes, and a sharp fall in dis­cre­tionary spend­ing.
Since Oc­to­ber, Six­es has record­ed week­ly de­clines in foot traf­fic rang­ing from 20 to as high as 50 per cent, de­pend­ing on the sea­son. The drop has been most se­vere out­side ma­jor sport­ing events and hol­i­days, pe­ri­ods that tra­di­tion­al­ly sus­tain hos­pi­tal­i­ty op­er­a­tors dur­ing slow­er months.

The start of a new year does not ar­rive qui­et­ly. It comes with pres­sure. Pres­sure to per­form, to grow, to re­cov­er, to keep up. And for many busi­ness­es in T&T, 2026 is not be­gin­ning with a clean slate. It is be­gin­ning with a re­al­i­ty check.

Pan Amer­i­can Life In­sur­ance Group (PALIG) is close­ly mon­i­tor­ing T&T’s evolv­ing reg­u­la­to­ry land­scape—in­clud­ing the Gov­ern­ment’s pro­posed as­set tax and planned re­forms to make pri­vate pen­sions tax free—as the com­pa­ny ush­ers in a new era of lead­er­ship with the ap­point­ment of Win­ston Williams as CEO for T&T and the wider Caribbean.

Ac­cord­ing to the PwC’s 2026 Glob­al CEO Sur­vey, on­ly three in ten (30 per cent) CEOs are con­fi­dent about rev­enue growth in 2026 as most strug­gle to turn AI in­vest­ment in­to tan­gi­ble re­turns while one in eight (12 per cent) of CEOs say AI has de­liv­ered both cost and rev­enue ben­e­fits, while com­pa­nies that have scaled AI with strong foun­da­tions are pulling ahead.

CEO of Ramps Lo­gis­tics, Shaun Ram­per­sad, wants to see more of the mon­ey gen­er­at­ed by the en­er­gy multi­na­tion­als in T&T re­tained in the coun­try. And the head of one of the re­gion's largest lo­gis­tics com­pa­nies says one of the ways to boost the in-coun­try re­ten­tion of val­ue is by en­cour­ag­ing the large en­er­gy com­pa­nies to use lo­cal en­er­gy ser­vices com­pa­nies more.

En­er­gy Min­is­ter Dr Roodal Mooni­lal will at­tend In­dia En­er­gy Week 2026 in Goa, In­dia, from Jan­u­ary 27 to 30, rep­re­sent­ing Trinidad and To­ba­go on a glob­al stage.

Na­tion­al Com­mer­cial Bank Ja­maica Ltd (NCBJ) is un­der­go­ing an­oth­er lead­er­ship tran­si­tion with Bruce Bowen sched­uled to demit of­fice as CEO at the end of Feb­ru­ary, mark­ing the lat­est ex­ec­u­tive shift with­in the NCB Fi­nan­cial Group Ltd (NCBFG) struc­ture.

The on­go­ing tri­al of a law­suit over the col­lapse of in­sur­ance gi­ant Colo­nial Life In­sur­ance Com­pa­ny (Cli­co) has been put on hold for a week as the Cen­tral Bank of Trinidad and To­ba­go (CBTT) and the for­mer in­sur­ance gi­ant’s cur­rent man­age­ment mull over its fu­ture. 

Chair­man of the Cli­co Pol­i­cy­hold­ers Group (CPG) Pe­ter Per­me­ll says while the rev­e­la­tion of the re­port of the Col­man Com­mis­sion of En­quiry to the pub­lic is wel­come, it un­der­lines the in­jus­tice done to Cli­co pol­i­cy­hold­ers.

Two new Car­ni­val fetes are emerg­ing at a time when sev­er­al es­tab­lished events have been can­celled, un­der­lin­ing the fi­nan­cial strain now re­shap­ing the busi­ness of Car­ni­val.