De­spite the war of words be­tween the Venezuela and T&T Gov­ern­ments over the last few months, at the busi­ness lev­el, re­la­tions con­tin­ue to forge ahead.

At the Ju­ly 7 Mon­day Night Re­port of rul­ing Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC), Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar made an an­nounce­ment that has the po­ten­tial to be trans­for­ma­tion­al for a sig­nif­i­cant per­cent­age of T&T’s pop­u­la­tion.

Win­ner of the Car­ni­val Large Band of the Year, 2025, The Lost Tribe, has opened Car­ni­val Cam­pus, a pro­gramme aimed at ed­u­cat­ing young­sters in the busi­ness of Car­ni­val and po­ten­tial­ly re­duc­ing for­eign ex­change use with­in the Car­ni­val sec­tor.

Ja­maican fi­nan­cial pow­er­house, NCB Fi­nan­cial Group (NCBFG), has agreed to pledge all of the shares of its ma­jor­i­ty-owned sub­sidiary, West­moor­ings-based Guardian Hold­ings Ltd (GHL), as col­lat­er­al for its de­layed US$300 mil­lion bond.

Guyana’s Min­is­ter of Nat­ur­al Re­sources, Vick­ram Bhar­rat, says while the coun­try has not closed the door on part­ner­ing with T&T to re­open the Petrotrin Re­fin­ery in Pointe-a-Pierre, there are fac­tors they will have to con­sid­er be­fore mak­ing a de­ci­sion.

Tran­sit visa poli­cies rep­re­sent a com­plex in­ter­sec­tion of na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty, im­mi­gra­tion con­trol and in­ter­na­tion­al mo­bil­i­ty.

The evo­lu­tion of ar­ti­fi­cial in­tel­li­gence and its use in the lo­cal mar­ket was brought in­to fo­cus for the ex­port and ship­ping sec­tors at last week’s Trade and In­vest­ment Con­ven­tion.

T&T’s first util­i­ty-scale so­lar farm, Brechin Cas­tle So­lar Lim­it­ed, has achieved first elec­trons, bp an­nounced in a me­dia re­lease yes­ter­day.

En­er­gy Min­is­ter Dr Roodal Mooni­lal has con­firmed ex­ist­ing talks with ma­jor in­ter­na­tion­al en­er­gy play­ers, amid in­ter­na­tion­al re­ports that Exxon­Mo­bil has be­gun ne­go­ti­a­tions with the gov­ern­ment to ex­plore for oil and gas in up to sev­en deep­wa­ter blocks off the East Coast of the coun­try.

Lo­cal busi­ness own­ers and en­tre­pre­neurs are be­ing urged to re-eval­u­ate the rules by which they gauge their mar­kets.

John Bazill, an of­fi­cial re­spon­si­ble for trade re­la­tions with the Caribbean in the Eu­ro­pean Com­mis­sion’s Trade De­part­ment, is en­cour­ag­ing T&T to rat­i­fy the long-out­stand­ing Eco­nom­ic Part­ner­ship Agree­ment (EPA) with the Eu­ro­pean Union.

In an era de­fined by re­silience and in­no­va­tion, the 2025 Trade and In­vest­ment Con­ven­tion (TIC) is prov­ing to be more than just a trade show—it’s a launch­pad for small busi­ness­es ready to scale, ex­port, and thrive.