Venezuela’s un­sub­stan­ti­at­ed claims that there was a sec­ond ma­jor oil spill em­a­nat­ing from Trinidad wa­ters is ev­i­dence that re­la­tions be­tween Venezuela and T&T re­main frosty and there are dire se­cu­ri­ty and eco­nom­ic con­se­quences of this.

In a re­cent con­ver­sa­tion with a col­league, he lament­ed the state of con­fu­sion in an or­gan­i­sa­tion he is as­so­ci­at­ed with. The dis­cus­sion that en­sued led to a deep­er con­ver­sa­tion about “commess” and how it ad­verse­ly af­fects or­gan­i­sa­tions in Trinidad and To­ba­go (T&T). The word commess, root­ed in the French-cre­ole lan­guage and pri­mar­i­ly used in T&T, is as­so­ci­at­ed with con­fu­sion, gos­sip, chaos, scan­dal, in­fight­ing and dis­or­der.

The To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly’s (THA) re­quest for a record $4.12 bil­lion al­lo­ca­tion from Cen­tral Gov­ern­ment for fis­cal 2027 is be­ing met with a mix of con­cern, frus­tra­tion and calls for greater ac­count­abil­i­ty from stake­hold­ers, farm­ers and econ­o­mists who ar­gue that high­er fund­ing re­quests must be matched by tan­gi­ble re­sults on the ground.

The En­er­gy Cham­ber of Trinidad and To­ba­go and the Suri­name En­er­gy Cham­ber signed a Mem­o­ran­dum of Un­der­stand­ing (MOU) at the Suri­name En­er­gy, Oil and Gas Sum­mit (SEOGS) 2026.

The Mid-Year Bud­get Re­view by the Min­is­ter of Fi­nance brings with it the ex­pect­ed com­men­tary about the state of the lo­cal econ­o­my. My sug­ges­tion to the many econ­o­mists and an­a­lysts now pon­tif­i­cat­ing on the T&T econ­o­my is sim­ple: choose your words care­ful­ly.

Min­is­ter of Pub­lic Ad­min­is­tra­tion and Ar­ti­fi­cial In­tel­li­gence, Do­minic Smith, says the Gov­ern­ment is pro­gress­ing with work on build­ing a mod­ern, cit­i­zen-cen­tred and dig­i­tal­ly en­abled Pub­lic Ser­vice.

First Cit­i­zens Hold­ings Ltd share­hold­ers yes­ter­day elect­ed two new di­rec­tors to the board of the ma­jor­i­ty state-owned bank at its an­nu­al meet­ing at the Hilton Trinidad, while ap­prov­ing the com­pa­ny's au­dit­ed fi­nan­cial state­ments and the reap­point­ment of au­di­tors.

A lo­cal tech­nol­o­gy com­pa­ny is bet­ting that ar­ti­fi­cial in­tel­li­gence can help solve one of the Caribbean’s most per­sis­tent eco­nom­ic chal­lenges: the lack of fi­nan­cial lit­er­a­cy among work­ers and house­holds.

For over 20 years, Jeanette Mar­celle has been dish­ing out the tasti­est of meals. Whether in kitchens in the Caribbean, France, the US or on board a lux­u­ry cruise ship, she has tak­en every op­por­tu­ni­ty to de­vel­op her culi­nary skills.

The Fair Trad­ing Com­mis­sion (FTC) is seek­ing clos­er en­gage­ment with the pri­vate sec­tor as it moves to strength­en com­pe­ti­tion pol­i­cy and pro­mote fair­er mar­kets, while con­cerns over ris­ing nat­ur­al gas prices emerged dur­ing a stake­hold­er con­sul­ta­tion with busi­ness­es.

Pres­i­dent of the Trinidad and To­ba­go Man­u­fac­tur­ers’ As­so­ci­a­tion (TTMA) Emil Ramkissoon has said that the busi­ness group has set the am­bi­tious tar­get of dou­bling T&T’s non-en­er­gy ex­ports to TT$10.6 bil­lion by 2030.

Ger­man Am­bas­sador Dr Christophe Eick points to Ger­man in­volve­ment in Point Lisas, con­tin­ued par­tic­i­pa­tion in the en­er­gy sec­tor, and grow­ing in­ter­est in re­new­able en­er­gy, food ex­ports and trade di­ver­si­fi­ca­tion as ev­i­dence of an eco­nom­ic re­la­tion­ship that con­tin­ues to evolve be­yond its tra­di­tion­al foun­da­tions.