Min­is­ter of Plan­ning, Eco­nom­ic Af­fairs and De­vel­op­ment and Min­is­ter in the Min­istry of Fi­nance Kennedy Swarats­ingh host­ed an in­tro­duc­to­ry vis­it with re­cent­ly in­stalled In­ter­na­tion­al Mon­e­tary Fund mis­sion chief to T&T, Mag­nus Sax­e­gaard on Thurs­day to dis­cuss T&T’s eco­nom­ic re­silience.

Ac­cord­ing to a news re­lease from the Min­istry, the meet­ing served as an in­tro­duc­to­ry vis­it for Sax­e­gaard, who was in the coun­try from June 16 to 18.

The meet­ing took place at the Min­istry’s of­fice at Tow­er D of the In­ter­na­tion­al Wa­ter­front Cen­tre

The Min­istry said, “In light of the re­cent­ly con­clud­ed IMF Ar­ti­cle IV Con­sul­ta­tion, the meet­ing pro­vid­ed an op­por­tu­ni­ty to dis­cuss the Plan­ning Min­istry’s key achieve­ments, on­go­ing pri­or­i­ties and planned ini­tia­tives.”

Ac­cord­ing to the re­lease Plan­ning Min­is­ter Swarats­ingh had “pro­duc­tive dis­cus­sions with Sax­e­gaard on eco­nom­ic re­silience, sus­tain­able growth and the na­tion’s de­vel­op­ment pri­or­i­ties.”

The meet­ing came just over a month since the IMF con­clud­ed the 2026 Ar­ti­cle IV con­sul­ta­tion for Trinidad and To­ba­go on May 18, 2026. The as­sess­ment high­light­ed a grad­ual and sus­tained eco­nom­ic re­cov­ery, but al­so not­ed that struc­tur­al de­clines in pro­duc­tion from ma­ture oil and gas fields con­tin­ue to weigh on long-term eco­nom­ic growth.

Both Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar and Fi­nance Min­is­ter Dave Tan­coo hailed the as­sess­ment by the IMF as a turn­ing point for the lo­cal econ­o­my.