The Fair Trad­ing Com­mis­sion (FTC) has not been able to make en­force­ments for the past eight months due to the ab­sence of its board.

The gov­ern­ment has can­celled the Safe To Work (STOW) cer­ti­fi­ca­tion re­quire­ment for ac­cess to the en­er­gy sec­tor, end­ing a sys­tem that, it says, im­posed un­fair costs and bar­ri­ers to lo­cal busi­ness­es, par­tic­u­lar­ly small and medi­um-sized en­ter­pris­es.

De­spite the chal­leng­ing eco­nom­ic land­scape, chief op­er­at­ing of­fice of the Co-op­er­a­tive Cred­it Union League of T&T, Di­anne Joseph, is as­sur­ing the pub­lic that cred­it unions across the coun­try con­tin­ue to en­list new mem­bers.

The Gov­ern­ment is mov­ing in­to a crit­i­cal phase of its glob­al eco­nom­ic strat­e­gy, as a high-lev­el del­e­ga­tion from the Unit­ed Arab Emi­rates (UAE) ar­rives in this coun­try to­mor­row.

Last Fri­day, At­tor­ney Gen­er­al John Je­re­mie, SC, laid the Col­man Com­mis­sion of En­quiry re­port in­to the fail­ure of Cli­co and oth­er com­pa­nies of the CL Fi­nan­cial group in Par­lia­ment, ef­fec­tive­ly mak­ing that vo­lu­mi­nous doc­u­ment pub­lic for the first time.

The start of a new year does not ar­rive qui­et­ly. It comes with pres­sure. Pres­sure to per­form, to grow, to re­cov­er, to keep up. And for many busi­ness­es in T&T, 2026 is not be­gin­ning with a clean slate. It is be­gin­ning with a re­al­i­ty check.

In many pub­lic bod­ies, the Named Pro­cure­ment Of­fi­cer (NPO) po­si­tion ar­rives by mem­o­ran­dum or ad­min­is­tra­tive con­ve­nience, added on­to an al­ready full desk. Yet the mo­ment your name is record­ed as the NPO, some­thing shifts. The pro­cure­ment file be­comes a risk-bear­ing struc­ture. And too of­ten, you be­come the per­son ex­pect­ed to hold the line with­out the au­thor­i­ty, re­sources, or pro­tec­tion re­quired to do so safe­ly.

Since the clo­sure of the Pointe-a-Pierre re­fin­ery in 2018, Trinidad and To­ba­go has tran­si­tioned to ex­port­ing all of its do­mes­tic crude oil pro­duc­tion to the in­ter­na­tion­al mar­ket. This shift re­sult­ed in an im­me­di­ate and sig­nif­i­cant spike in ex­port vol­umes.

The cost of notes re­mains at the cen­tre of pub­lic at­ten­tion as the Cen­tral Bank of T&T moves ahead with the in­tro­duc­tion of cur­ren­cy bear­ing the new na­tion­al Coat of Arms.

Häa­gen-Dazs’ out­let at Eller­slie Plaza of­fi­cial­ly closed busi­ness per­ma­nent­ly at the start of this week.

The Res­i­dence, a well-known lim­ing spot at One Wood­brook Place, in Port of Spain, closed its doors late last year af­ter years of op­er­a­tion. Its shut­down is no longer an iso­lat­ed in­ci­dent but part of a widen­ing con­trac­tion across T&T’s food, bar, and en­ter­tain­ment in­dus­try, as op­er­a­tors strug­gle to ab­sorb sharp in­creas­es in al­co­hol prices and a dou­bling of bar li­cence fees.
At Six­es So­cial Crick­et in the up­stairs part of One Wood­brook Place, own­er Joan­na Ros­tant de­scribes a busi­ness en­vi­ron­ment that has changed dra­mat­i­cal­ly since the new al­co­hol du­ties took ef­fect in Oc­to­ber. The im­pact, she main­tains, is not the­o­ret­i­cal. It is vis­i­ble in emp­ty ta­bles, short­er limes, and a sharp fall in dis­cre­tionary spend­ing.
Since Oc­to­ber, Six­es has record­ed week­ly de­clines in foot traf­fic rang­ing from 20 to as high as 50 per cent, de­pend­ing on the sea­son. The drop has been most se­vere out­side ma­jor sport­ing events and hol­i­days, pe­ri­ods that tra­di­tion­al­ly sus­tain hos­pi­tal­i­ty op­er­a­tors dur­ing slow­er months.

The Gov­ern­ment of the Re­pub­lic of Trinidad and To­ba­go (GORTT) has ap­point­ed JP Mor­gan Se­cu­ri­ties and Bank of Amer­i­ca Se­cu­ri­ties to arrange a US$1 bil­lion in­ter­na­tion­al bond is­sue. The trans­ac­tion, au­tho­rised by the Min­is­ter of Fi­nance un­der the Ex­ter­nal Loans Act on Jan­u­ary 12, 2026, tar­gets qual­i­fied in­sti­tu­tion­al buy­ers in the Unit­ed States un­der Rule 144A and in­ter­na­tion­al in­vestors un­der Reg­u­la­tion S.