March closed out the first quar­ter of 2026 with Trinidad and To­ba­go’s strongest month­ly methanol pro­duc­tion of the pe­ri­od, com­plet­ing three con­sec­u­tive months of growth. To­tal out­put reached 1.13 mil­lion met­ric tonnes.

As cli­mate vul­ner­a­bil­i­ties deep­en across the Caribbean, re­gion­al fi­nan­cial in­sti­tu­tions, cap­i­tal mar­ket op­er­a­tors, and mort­gage lenders are fun­da­men­tal­ly re­think­ing how cap­i­tal is de­ployed across small is­land de­vel­op­ing states.

More than two years ago, a group of six young pro­fes­sion­als recog­nised a ma­jor flaw with re­gard to lo­cal play parks.

From sell­ing fruit chow at school in her teenage years in or­der to help her moth­er with the fi­nan­cial bur­dens at home, to help­ing her aunt sell av­o­ca­dos, chadon beni and green fig at the mar­ket on week­ends, she de­vel­oped skills in busi­ness acu­men, sales and great cus­tomer ser­vice. Her sev­en-year stint in the ac­counts de­part­ment of the in­sur­ance in­dus­try added an­oth­er di­men­sion to her de­vel­op­ment as a busi­ness­woman.

Trinidad and To­ba­go’s ap­proach to hous­ing, in­fra­struc­ture and eco­nom­ic de­vel­op­ment needs a ma­jor re­think, with greater in­te­gra­tion be­tween Gov­ern­ment agen­cies and a stronger link be­tween where peo­ple live, where they work and where in­vest­ment is di­rect­ed.

For my 2024 In­de­pen­dence col­umn, I did some­thing un­usu­al. I hand­ed most of it over to an ar­ti­fi­cial in­tel­li­gence chat­bot and then pub­lished its out­put with ap­pro­pri­ate dis­clo­sures.

The ANSA McAL group has an­nounced that Pad­ma De Li­ma has been ap­point­ed as man­ag­ing di­rec­tor, Guyana Brew­eries Inc.

A call is be­ing made for in­vestors, com­pa­nies and fi­nan­cial in­sti­tu­tions to take ad­van­tage of a new fi­nanc­ing av­enue that can chan­nel bil­lions of dol­lars in­to projects rang­ing from re­new­able en­er­gy and cli­mate-re­silient in­fra­struc­ture to hous­ing, health­care and ed­u­ca­tion.

For­mer Plan­ning Min­is­ter Dr Bhoe Tewarie is hope­ful that T&T’s re­la­tion­ship with Venezuela will en­ter a “new era” char­ac­terised by greater co­op­er­a­tion and align­ment with the Unit­ed States.

Fam­i­ly busi­ness­es have var­i­ous types of con­flicts, with dif­fer­ent root caus­es. While con­flict can­not be avoid­ed, the fo­cus should be on cre­at­ing an en­vi­ron­ment where dif­fer­ences can be re­solved for the long-term ben­e­fit of the en­ter­prise and its abil­i­ty to con­tin­ue the lega­cy. How can fam­i­lies avoid this com­mon trap many fam­i­ly busi­ness­es face?

Hous­ing must be at the cen­tre of Trinidad and To­ba­go’s ur­ban trans­for­ma­tion, with greater em­pha­sis on re­silient com­mu­ni­ties, af­ford­able homes, smart cities and in­fra­struc­ture that can with­stand cli­mate shocks.

Hilton Trinidad work­ers are still seek­ing clar­i­ty on sev­er­ance pay­ments fol­low­ing a town hall meet­ing with man­age­ment yes­ter­day.