As the world cel­e­brates In­ter­na­tion­al Women’s Day, it is an op­por­tu­ni­ty to re­flect on the strides made to­ward gen­der equal­i­ty, par­tic­u­lar­ly in tra­di­tion­al­ly male-dom­i­nat­ed in­dus­tries like the ex­trac­tive sec­tor. In 2023, the Ex­trac­tive In­dus­tries Trans­paren­cy Ini­tia­tive (EITI) strength­ened its com­mit­ment to gen­der in­clu­sion by in­tro­duc­ing ad­di­tion­al gen­der-spe­cif­ic pro­vi­sions in­to the EITI Stan­dard.

In to­day’s fast-paced dig­i­tal land­scape, ar­ti­fi­cial in­tel­li­gence (AI) is no longer a fu­tur­is­tic con­cept but a present-day ne­ces­si­ty. Busi­ness­es that fail to in­te­grate AI in­to their mar­ket­ing strate­gies risk falling be­hind in an era when da­ta-dri­ven in­sights, au­toma­tion, and per­son­alised en­gage­ment de­fine suc­cess.

The lat­est round of sanc­tions will cost Venezuela bil­lions of dol­lars in rev­enue and could re­sult in a new flow of il­le­gal mi­grants, which could cause se­ri­ous eco­nom­ic and so­cial prob­lems in T&T and oth­er neigh­bour­ing coun­tries.

The long-run­ning bor­der dis­pute be­tween Guyana and Venezuela, which is cur­rent­ly be­fore the In­ter­na­tion­al Court of Jus­tice (ICJ), flared anew on March 1st. Venezue­lan mil­i­tary as­sets mount­ed an in­cur­sion in­to oil-rich Guyana’s ter­ri­to­r­i­al wa­ters — ma­noeu­vring with the Exxon­Mo­bil-op­er­at­ed off­shore oil field in their line of sight — prompt­ing Guyana’s Pres­i­dent Mo­hamed Ir­faan Ali to de­nounce this lat­est Venezue­lan provo­ca­tion.

chair­man of the Fair Trad­ing Com­mis­sion (FTC), Dr Ronald Ramkissoon, agree­ing that an­oth­er ce­ment sup­pli­er is need­ed in T&T as he ad­vo­cat­ed that com­pe­ti­tion is the best way to grow an econ­o­my.

Sco­tia­bank Trinidad and To­ba­go yes­ter­day re­port­ed af­ter-tax prof­it of $166.54 mil­lion for the three-month pe­ri­od end­ed Jan­u­ary 31, 2025, which was an in­crease of 1.38 per cent com­pared to the $164.26 mil­lion it re­port­ed for the same pe­ri­od in 2024.

T&T and Japan are seek­ing to de­vel­op fur­ther col­lab­o­ra­tion and in­vest­ment op­por­tu­ni­ties for the mu­tu­al ben­e­fit of both coun­tries.

Suri­name’s Min­is­ter of For­eign Af­fairs Al­bert Ramdin was elect­ed yes­ter­day as the new sec­re­tary gen­er­al of the Or­ga­ni­za­tion of Amer­i­can States (OAS) for a five-year term, urg­ing mul­ti­lat­er­al­ism and call­ing on mem­ber states to be unit­ed in the fight against a chang­ing glob­al en­vi­ron­ment.

Point Lisas In­dus­tri­al Port De­vel­op­ment Cor­po­ra­tion Ltd (Plipde­co) yes­ter­day an­nounced the res­ig­na­tion of its di­rec­tor, Ayan­na Miguel, as the com­pa­ny con­tin­ues to un­der­go sig­nif­i­cant changes.

A “proud Tri­ni to the bone” vice-pres­i­dent and gen­er­al man­ag­er of Flow Trinidad, em­bod­ies re­silience, sheer de­ter­mi­na­tion and proud suc­cess, hav­ing com­ing through the ranks in the telecom­mu­ni­ca­tions in­dus­try and ris­ing to hold one of the top po­si­tions.

Per­for­mance or on-de­mand bonds have been de­scribed as the lifeblood of com­merce and are a com­mon fea­ture in Re­quests for Pro­pos­als (RF­Ps) is­sued by lo­cal pub­lic bod­ies and state agen­cies. A per­for­mance bond is a sure­ty giv­en by a third par­ty (usu­al­ly a bank or in­sur­ance com­pa­ny) to guar­an­tee the com­ple­tion of an­oth­er’s con­trac­tu­al oblig­a­tions. The amount payable un­der a per­for­mance bond can some­times range from 2 to10 per cent of the val­ue of the un­der­ly­ing con­tract.

The road is not al­ways smooth for women en­tre­pre­neurs, but sur­round your­self with peo­ple who be­lieve in you, nev­er let any­one tell you that you can’t do it and God will di­rect your path to suc­cess.