Econ­o­mist Dr In­dera Sage­wan has wel­comed a Venezue­lan del­e­ga­tion’s vis­it to Trinidad and To­ba­go, de­scrib­ing it as an im­por­tant step to­wards re­build­ing bi­lat­er­al re­la­tions and strength­en­ing eco­nom­ic co­op­er­a­tion, par­tic­u­lar­ly in en­er­gy se­cu­ri­ty.

Whol­ly state-owned Na­tion­al Gas Com­pa­ny of Trinidad and To­ba­go (NGC) has re­ject­ed claims that its sub­sidiary, NGC Green Com­pa­ny, owes each com­pressed nat­ur­al gas (CNG) op­er­a­tors or deal­ers more than $450,000 in out­stand­ing elec­tric­i­ty re­im­burse­ments, de­scrib­ing a no­tice post­ed at a San Fer­nan­do ser­vice sta­tion as false and mis­lead­ing.

The en­er­gy cham­bers of Trinidad and To­ba­go and Venezuela have signed a Let­ter of In­tent to strength­en co­op­er­a­tion and pro­mote clos­er in­te­gra­tion be­tween the two coun­tries’ hy­dro­car­bon sec­tors.

A new dig­i­tal mar­ket­place is tar­get­ting the in­ter­sec­tion of en­ter­tain­ment, e-com­merce and fi­nan­cial tech­nol­o­gy, with co-founder An­gel Stew­art iden­ti­fy­ing for­eign ex­change con­straints, frag­ment­ed pay­ment sys­tems and lim­it­ed mar­ket ac­cess as op­por­tu­ni­ties to re­shape how the Caribbean’s cre­ative in­dus­tries do busi­ness.

Philip Mor­ris T&T Ltd (PMTT) is rais­ing con­cerns that the Gov­ern­ment’s pro­posed 20 per cent cus­toms du­ty on va­p­ing de­vices and e-liq­uids could un­der­mine ef­forts to en­cour­age smok­ers to switch to smoke-free al­ter­na­tives, while at the same time strength­en­ing the il­lic­it mar­ket.

Lo­cal con­trac­tor, NH In­ter­na­tion­al (Caribbean), has se­cured a US$243 mil­lion (EC$666 mil­lion) con­tract to ex­pand St Lu­cia’s Hewanor­ra In­ter­na­tion­al Air­port, even as con­struc­tion firms T&T con­tin­ue to raise con­cerns about de­layed pay­ments and the slow roll­out of gov­ern­ment projects.

Fund­ing for na­tion­al ob­ser­vances, in­clud­ing Di­vali, African Eman­ci­pa­tion Day and In­di­an Ar­rival Day, is set to in­crease to $4 mil­lion in fis­cal 2027, while sev­er­al com­mu­ni­ty de­vel­op­ment pro­grammes and cul­tur­al in­sti­tu­tions are al­so ear­marked for high­er al­lo­ca­tions.

Trade union leader Michael An­nisette is cau­tion­ing against pub­licly crit­i­cis­ing pub­lic sec­tor em­ploy­ees, fol­low­ing Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s warn­ing that un­der­per­form­ing work­ers could be fired and re­placed.

En­er­gy Min­is­ter Dr Roodal Mooni­lal has wel­comed the suc­cess­ful fab­ri­ca­tion and load­out of the Co­conut jack­et, a de­vel­op­ment he ex­pects to sup­port nat­ur­al gas sup­plies to Trinidad and To­ba­go’s petro­chem­i­cal and down­stream in­dus­tries.

Repa­ra­tions could pro­vide T&T and the Caribbean with re­sources to strength­en health­care, ex­pand ed­u­ca­tion­al op­por­tu­ni­ties, sup­port re­search and make loans more ac­ces­si­ble, Pro­fes­sor Emer­i­tus Win­ston Suite has opined, as he called for a greater fo­cus on how any repa­ra­tions could be used to ad­vance the re­gion’s de­vel­op­ment.

The Gov­ern­ment has re­moved cer­tain pow­ers from the Pres­i­dent, un­der the For­eign In­vest­ment Act, and as­signed them to Min­is­ter of Fi­nance Dav­en­dranath Tan­coo.

For­mer en­er­gy min­is­ter Stu­art Young pressed the Gov­ern­ment for an­swers on fu­el sub­sidy pay­ments, staffing arrange­ments and li­a­bil­i­ties linked to Petrotrin as the Min­istry of En­er­gy and En­er­gy In­dus­tries’ al­lo­ca­tion came un­der ex­am­i­na­tion in Par­lia­ment.