In a world de­fined by glob­al volatil­i­ty, small de­vel­op­ing na­tions (SDNs) are re­defin­ing sta­bil­i­ty. Ge­o­graph­ic iso­la­tion and lim­it­ed phys­i­cal in­fra­struc­ture, tra­di­tion­al vul­ner­a­bil­i­ties for these states, are now be­ing coun­tered by a pow­er­ful dig­i­tal shield: e-com­merce. This ar­ti­cle ex­plores how dig­i­tal trade serves as a pri­ma­ry en­gine for eco­nom­ic re­silience, us­ing the re­cent­ly launched Trinidad and To­ba­go (T&T) Na­tion­al E-Com­merce Strat­e­gy 2025–2030 as a land­mark ex­am­ple of proac­tive na­tion­al plan­ning.

Busi­ness clo­sures are mount­ing, and con­cerns are ris­ing that there are grow­ing signs the econ­o­my is trend­ing down­ward.

In a trans­for­ma­tion of its lo­cal op­er­a­tions, Wood­side En­er­gy has ef­fec­tive­ly tran­si­tioned from be­ing a ma­jor em­ploy­er in T&T’s en­er­gy sec­tor to a sin­gle-per­son pres­ence on the ground as it dis­closed it has down­sized as a re­sult of its di­vest­ment of en­er­gy as­sets in this coun­try.

While T&T must con­tin­ue to trade with the Unit­ed States, it is al­so im­por­tant for the pri­vate sec­tor to de­vel­op new prod­ucts that can en­ter new mar­kets out­side of the Unit­ed States.

Wood­side En­er­gy has out­lined how T&T’s pro­duc­tion shar­ing con­tract frame­work is struc­tured to de­liv­er in­creas­ing re­turns to the State as prices and out­put rise, with wind­fall gains large­ly ac­cru­ing to the coun­try dur­ing pe­ri­ods of ex­tra­or­di­nary mar­ket con­di­tions.

The Ba­hamas gov­ern­ment says it will re­move all val­ue added tax (VAT) on foods cur­rent­ly at­tract­ing a five per cent VAT.

In a world char­ac­terised by un­cer­tain­ty, chal­lenges, dis­ap­point­ments and in­creas­ing stake­hold­ers’ ex­pec­ta­tions, lead­ers are recog­nis­ing the need for a per­son­al foun­da­tion.

Econ­o­mist Dr Mar­lene Attzs has warned that en­er­gy volatil­i­ty, tight­en­ing for­eign ex­change avail­abil­i­ty, fis­cal con­straints and es­ca­lat­ing ex­ter­nal shocks are con­verg­ing in­to what she de­scribed as a “per­fect storm” for busi­ness­es and house­holds, un­der­scor­ing the need for da­ta-dri­ven de­ci­sion-mak­ing and long-term struc­tur­al re­form.

Over the past few years, there has been a great deal of dis­course in Trinidad & To­ba­go about the op­por­tu­ni­ties to im­port nat­ur­al gas from Venezuela to Trinidad for pro­cess­ing in­to petro­chem­i­cals or LNG and re-ex­port­ing the fi­nal prod­ucts to in­ter­na­tion­al mar­kets. This con­tin­ues to be a ma­jor area of in­ter­est and es­pe­cial­ly with the Drag­on gas field.

In March 2025, the Cen­tral Bank of T&T be­gan is­su­ing its Eco­nom­ic Dat­a­Pack, which re­placed its Eco­nom­ic Bul­letin and Sum­ma­ry Eco­nom­ic In­di­ca­tors Bul­letin. The Dat­a­Pack is pub­lished quar­ter­ly along with the Mon­e­tary Pol­i­cy An­nounce­ment and the ini­tia­tive forms part of the Bank’s on­go­ing ef­forts to im­prove the ac­ces­si­bil­i­ty and use­ful­ness of eco­nom­ic and fi­nan­cial da­ta sets.

An­gos­tu­ra has of­fi­cial­ly marked its re-en­try in­to the In­di­an mar­ket with a ship­ment val­ued at US $80,000, sig­nalling what the com­pa­ny en­vi­sions as a ma­jor ex­pan­sion in­to one of the world’s fastest-grow­ing con­sumer mar­kets.

En­er­gy com­pa­nies gen­er­at­ed an es­ti­mat­ed US$17.3 bil­lion in for­eign ex­change be­tween 2011 and 2024, un­der­scor­ing the sec­tor’s con­tin­ued cen­tral­i­ty to T&T’s eco­nom­ic sta­bil­i­ty de­spite grow­ing volatil­i­ty, ac­cord­ing to da­ta pre­sent­ed by the Trinidad and To­ba­go Ex­trac­tive In­dus­tries Trans­paren­cy Ini­tia­tive (TTEITI).