In T&T, Christ­mas is more than a hol­i­day; it is an eco­nom­ic event of na­tion­al sig­nif­i­cance. From Paramin to Scar­bor­ough, the fes­tive sea­son shapes re­tail per­for­mance, dri­ves non-en­er­gy growth and in­creas­ing­ly ex­pos­es the fi­nan­cial strain fac­ing house­holds.

Stoke­ley Smart is mak­ing waves as a T&T ac­tu­ary, with his work be­ing cit­ed in the fore­most ac­tu­ar­i­al jour­nals and be­ing in­vit­ed to present on The Smart Ta­bles at con­fer­ences.

The In­ter­na­tion­al En­er­gy Agency (IEA) has been track­ing fi­nal in­vest­ment de­ci­sions (FIDs) for new LNG ex­port projects across the world and has pub­lished liq­ue­fac­tion ca­pac­i­ty ad­di­tions through 2030. At present, liq­ue­fac­tion ca­pac­i­ty is ap­prox­i­mate­ly 670 bcm/y but be­tween 2025 and 2030 it is ex­pect­ed that more than 300 bcm/yr of new LNG ex­port ca­pac­i­ty is ex­pect­ed to come on­line from projects that have al­ready reached fi­nal in­vest­ment de­ci­sion (FID) or are un­der con­struc­tion, mark­ing the largest wave of ca­pac­i­ty ad­di­tions to date.

There is no doubt that there are pow­er­ful firms in the im­port and dis­tri­b­u­tion of phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal drugs in T&T. This is the case for sev­er­al key sec­tors in the T&T econ­o­my. The firms that dom­i­nate the phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal sec­tor achieved their dom­i­nance by the ad­van­tage they had start­ing their orig­i­nal com­pa­nies back in the late 19th cen­tu­ry.

Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies (UWI) pro­fes­sor of Eco­nom­ics, Roger Ho­sein be­lieves that once pub­lic ser­vants’ wage in­creas­es are tied to greater ef­fi­cien­cy and pro­duc­tiv­i­ty, the do­mes­tic econ­o­my would ben­e­fit.

But pro­mot­ers around the coun­try are hop­ing for a Christ­mas mir­a­cle for the sea­son that fol­lows the Yule­tide Sea­son, as there are al­ready signs that Car­ni­val, T&T’s largest tourism event, will be scaled back as a re­sult of re­cent gov­ern­ment de­ci­sions.

The in­tro­duc­tion of the land­lord busi­ness sur­charge un­der the Fi­nance Bill, 2025, has sparked in­tense na­tion­al de­bate, as lead­ing voic­es—in­clud­ing econ­o­mist Dr Ronald Ramkissoon, As­so­ci­a­tion of Re­al Es­tate Agents (AREA) Pres­i­dent Sal­ly Singh and the T&T Coali­tion of Ser­vices In­dus­tries (TTC­SI) pres­i­dent Di­anne Joseph—warn that while the mea­sure aims to strength­en Gov­ern­ment rev­enue and pro­mote tax eq­ui­ty, it risks deep­en­ing fi­nan­cial strain with­in an al­ready frag­ile rental hous­ing mar­ket.

With a keen eye trained on Trinidad and To­ba­go, for­eign pol­i­cy cir­cles are look­ing back on an event­ful year in the in­ter­na­tion­al af­fairs of the Caribbean Com­mu­ni­ty (Cari­com). The sub­ject of live­ly de­bate, Trinidad and To­ba­go’s re-en­vi­sion­ing of the for­eign pol­i­cy-re­lat­ed prin­ci­ple of the Caribbean as a Zone of Peace has ar­guably fu­elled this height­ened lev­el of in­ter­est. Al­so of note, this de­ci­sion put Trinidad and To­ba­go at odds with its sis­ter Cari­com mem­ber states.

In a de­vel­op­ment sig­nalling a new era of na­tion­al col­lab­o­ra­tion, the Pri­vate Sec­tor Or­gan­i­sa­tion of T&T (PSOTT) was of­fi­cial­ly launched yes­ter­day, ce­ment­ing its role as a strate­gic and ful­ly in­te­grat­ed part­ner to the Gov­ern­ment in dri­ving eco­nom­ic trans­for­ma­tion.

The Ex­im­bank’s fail­ure to achieve its full man­date may have con­tributed to the dis­missal of Navin Dook­er­an as Ex­port Im­port Bank of T&T Ltd (Ex­im­bank) CEO.

Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar has stat­ed she can­not di­vulge de­tails con­cern­ing ne­go­ti­a­tions for nat­ur­al gas sup­ply in­volv­ing the gov­ern­ment due to con­fi­den­tial­i­ty claus­es.

Re­tired busi­ness ex­ec­u­tive, Robert Ri­ley, has be­come the lat­est di­rec­tor to re­sign from the board of Re­pub­lic Fi­nan­cial Hold­ings Ltd (RFHL). Ri­ley's res­ig­na­tion, which was an­nounced yes­ter­day in a ma­te­r­i­al news no­tice, was ef­fec­tive as at De­cem­ber 6.