The se­nior fi­nan­cial sec­tor spe­cial­ist at the World Bank, Nicholas Smith on Tues­day said Caribbean coun­tries are lack­ing in the im­ple­men­ta­tion of fast pay­ment mech­a­nisms that have proven to be a ma­jor break­through in busi­ness trans­ac­tions glob­al­ly.

De­spite a slug­gish start to the back-to-school shop­ping sea­son, book­store own­ers re­main op­ti­mistic that sales will gain mo­men­tum by the end of Au­gust.

Pro­fes­sor of Wa­ter Re­sources Man­age­ment and In­fra­struc­ture at the Roy­al Agri­cul­tur­al Uni­ver­si­ty (RAU), Unit­ed King­dom, Ki­ran To­ta-Ma­haraj, is propos­ing that T&T should con­sid­er us­ing hy­dro­gen en­er­gy not on­ly as a source of en­vi­ron­men­tal­ly-friend­ly en­er­gy, but al­so to di­ver­si­fy the econ­o­my.

The Exxon­Mo­bil deal is a step in the right di­rec­tion, but for­mer en­er­gy min­is­ter Car­olyn Seep­er­sad-Bachan is urg­ing the gov­ern­ment to learn lessons from Guyana.

Na­tion­al Flour Mills (NFM)has re­port­ed a prof­it af­ter tax of $22.8 mil­lion for the six-month pe­ri­od end­ed June 30, 2025. That rep­re­sents an in­crease of 11.2 per cent over the $20.5 mil­lion prof­it the ma­jor­i­ty State-owned com­pa­ny re­port­ed for the same pe­ri­od last year.

The Na­tion­al In­vest­ment Fund Hold­ing Com­pa­ny (NIF) yes­ter­day re­port­ed it made its 14th coupon pay­ment of $85.2 mil­lion to bond­hold­ers on its Se­ries B and Se­ries C Bonds on Mon­day, Au­gust 11, 2025.

Pub­licly list­ed cig­a­rette man­u­fac­tur­er West In­di­an To­bac­co Com­pa­ny (Wit­co) yes­ter­day re­port­ed af­ter-tax prof­it of $34.37 mil­lion for the six months end­ed June 30, 2025, a 56.8 per cent de­cline com­pared to the $79.71 mil­lion the com­pa­ny earned for the same pe­ri­od in 2024.

While there is con­cern over ANSA McAL Group’s de­ci­sion to sus­pend the pay­ment of div­i­dends for a three-year pe­ri­od, the group chief ex­ec­u­tive of­fi­cer An­tho­ny N Sab­ga III is adamant the group is far from fac­ing a cri­sis.

With World Steel­pan Day be­ing ob­served to­mor­row, Au­gust 11, the oc­ca­sion marks a glob­al cel­e­bra­tion of T&T’s icon­ic na­tion­al in­stru­ment—the steel­pan.

Man­ag­ing di­rec­tor of Pina­ka Con­sult­ing Ltd. Shi­va Bisses­sar, is alert­ing the pub­lic to the per­ils of on­line scams and is call­ing for pub­lic pri­vate part­ner­ship to treat with the im­pact of such ac­tiv­i­ty, which in­cludes fi­nan­cial crimes.

En­deav­our Hold­ings Ltd (EHL) has record­ed a net prof­it af­ter tax of $48.2 mil­lion for the year end­ed April 30, 2025, an in­crease of 12.3 per cent com­pared to $42.9 mil­lion the re­al es­tate com­pa­ny earned for the same pe­ri­od in 2024.

The ANSA McAL group has hailed the turn­around of US-based chlor-al­ka­li pro­duc­er Bleachtech LLC as a key part of its promis­ing sec­ond quar­ter per­for­mance.