Through­out the In­ter­na­tion­al Mon­e­tary Fund an­nu­al meet­ing in Wash­ing­ton over the past week, it was large­ly not­ed that cen­tral bank gov­er­nors around the world have been placed in an un­en­vi­able po­si­tion.

Prime Min­is­ter of An­tigua and Bar­bu­da Gas­ton Browne is ad­vis­ing that the time has come for a re-eval­u­a­tion and re­align­ment of ho­tel con­ces­sions in the Caribbean to ar­rive at a more eq­ui­table and sus­tain­able in­cen­tive regime that is fair and eq­ui­table to all stake­hold­ers.

In­creas­ing Guardian Life of The Caribbean’s share of the re­gion­al mar­kets in which it op­er­ates is one of the pri­or­i­ties for the in­sur­ance com­pa­ny.

In the na­tion­al bud­get for the fis­cal year 2025, lo­cal Small and Medi­um En­ter­pris­es (“SMEs”) were not­ed to gen­er­ate rev­enue, cre­ate em­ploy­ment and boost for­eign ex­change earn­ings with non-en­er­gy ex­ports from SMEs be­ing val­ued at US$2.4bil­lon in 2022. With this in mind, the suc­cess and long-term vi­a­bil­i­ty of SMEs can be said to be of in­creas­ing im­por­tance in Trinidad and To­ba­go.

The British Amer­i­can In­sur­ance Co. Ltd and Colo­nial Life In­sur­ance Co. Ltd. Pol­i­cy Hold­ers Group (BA­COL) has thanked pol­i­cy­hold­ers for “their pa­tience and their sup­port ”as it dis­agreed with the rul­ing by the Caribbean Court of Jus­tice (CCJ) to dis­miss its law­suit brought against the Trinidad and To­ba­go gov­ern­ment.

​Cen­tral Bank Gov­er­nor Dr Alvin Hi­laire says Trinidad and To­ba­go is well placed to avert the prob­lem of ris­ing debt lev­els, even as that is­sued was red­flagged as a glob­al con­cern at this week's In­ter­na­tion­al Mon­e­tary Fund (IMF) meet­ings in Wash­ing­ton DC.

As ris­ing cost in food con­tin­ues to be a con­cern for cit­i­zens, econ­o­mist Prof Roger Ho­sein is ad­vis­ing that one of the key in­fla­tion rates this coun­try needs to look at is that of food prices, stat­ing that this has in­creased by around 43 per cent since 2015.

In a no­tice of ap­point­ment of re­ceiv­er, dat­ed Oc­to­ber 21, Varune Mun­gal is iden­ti­fied as the re­ceiv­er of Ni­Quan.

The Caribbean is lead­ing by ex­am­ple, ac­cord­ing to the In­ter­na­tion­al Mon­e­tary Fund IMF man­ag­ing di­rec­tor Kristali­na Georgie­va.

Econ­o­mist Dr Mar­lene Attzs said yes­ter­day that she is cau­tious­ly op­ti­mistic at the lat­est fore­cast by the In­ter­na­tion­al Mon­e­tary Fund (IMF) for T&T.

For­eign ex­change avail­abil­i­ty has been raised as a sig­nif­i­cant is­sue af­fect­ing mem­bers of the In­ter­gov­ern­men­tal Group of 24 (G24) at the au­tumn meet­ings of the In­ter­na­tion­al Mon­e­tary Fund (IMF) in Wash­ing­ton DC.

The ser­vices sec­tor ap­pears to be un­tapped as da­ta from the Cen­tral Bank showed that in 2023, ser­vices ex­ports in­creased by 30 per cent when com­pared with 2022, ac­cord­ing to the act­ing CEO of the T&T Coali­tion of Ser­vices In­dus­tries (TTC­SI) Daren Lee Sing, as he spoke about the or­gan­i­sa­tion's jour­ney as it marked 18th an­niver­sary on Oc­to­ber 11, as the na­tion­al um­brel­la or­gan­i­sa­tion for the sec­tor.