Car­ni­val, long hailed as the soul of T&T’s cul­ture, is in­creas­ing­ly recog­nised as one of the na­tion’s most pow­er­ful eco­nom­ic en­gines—an in­tri­cate ser­vices ecosys­tem that dri­ves tourism, cre­ativ­i­ty, en­tre­pre­neur­ship and glob­al de­mand for the coun­try’s cul­tur­al ex­per­tise.

In this space on Jan­u­ary 15, 2026, un­der the head­line, ‘When will T&T’s for­eign re­serves run out?’ I re­port­ed the fol­low­ing;

For decades, the eco­nom­ic nar­ra­tive of T&T has been dom­i­nat­ed by the ebb and flow of the en­er­gy sec­tor. While oil and gas have long been the ti­tans of rev­enue, a qui­et gi­ant has steadi­ly grown to form the true back­bone of the na­tion­al econ­o­my. As we look to­ward the da­ta from 2023 through 2025, a new re­al­i­ty is crys­tal clear: the ser­vices sec­tor is not mere­ly a sup­port­ing play­er; it is the largest com­po­nent of the T&T econ­o­my and its work­force.

In re­sponse to so­cial me­dia com­ments on Feb­ru­ary 1, sug­gest­ing pos­si­ble mis­con­duct with­in busi­ness or­gan­i­sa­tions, the T&T Man­u­fac­tur­ers' As­so­ci­a­tion (TTMA) is reaf­firm­ing that the coun­try has long-es­tab­lished and proven mech­a­nisms for ad­dress­ing al­le­ga­tions of wrong­do­ing in any pub­lic or pri­vate of­fice or in­sti­tu­tion.

The last 12 months have been an ed­u­ca­tion. Not in what we hoped, but in what we should have known. We watched the Trump ad­min­is­tra­tion as­sert “Amer­i­ca First” with a blunt­ness that left no room for am­bi­gu­i­ty. We watched Cana­da and Eu­rope ac­com­mo­date, re­cal­i­brate, de­fer un­til Green­land was threat­ened, un­til a NA­TO al­ly was in the crosshairs. Then, sud­den­ly, sov­er­eign­ty mat­tered, strate­gic au­ton­o­my be­came ur­gent. Decades of com­fort­able as­sump­tions dis­solved in weeks and I have had to re­vis­it my world view.

Over the last two decades, T&T com­pa­nies from sec­tors in­clud­ing man­u­fac­tur­ing, en­er­gy ser­vices, the cre­ative sec­tor, tech­nol­o­gy, and fi­nance have so­lid­i­fied their po­si­tions as lo­cal and re­gion­al play­ers. This suc­cess of­ten de­fined by rev­enues, al­so in­clude in­creased cus­tomers, new mar­kets or new and en­hanced prod­ucts or ser­vices.

GraceKennedy (GK) has named Massy Dis­tri­b­u­tion as its new dis­tri­b­u­tion part­ner for food and bev­er­age prod­ucts man­aged by its sub­sidiary, Grace Foods Latin Amer­i­ca and the Caribbean (Grace Foods LA­CA).

T&T’s co­coa in­dus­try en­tered a trans­for­ma­tive new chap­ter yes­ter­day, with the of­fi­cial launch of the Trini­tario Co­coa Cer­ti­fi­ca­tion Trade­mark, an ini­tia­tive de­signed to pro­tect, au­then­ti­cate, and el­e­vate one of the coun­try’s most prized agri­cul­tur­al as­sets.

For the past few years, lo­cal deal­ers pro­mot­ing the sale of elec­tric ve­hi­cles (EVs) have tout­ed the cost-ef­fec­tive­ness of switch­ing to such ve­hi­cles.

Cin­e­maONE Group end­ed the 2025 fi­nan­cial year with high­er rev­enue and stronger un­der­ly­ing op­er­at­ing per­for­mance, even as ac­count­ing-dri­ven lease charges and fi­nanc­ing pres­sures pushed loss­es wider.

Min­is­ter in the Min­istry of Fi­nance and Min­is­ter of Plan­ning, Eco­nom­ic Af­fairs and De­vel­op­ment, Dr Kennedy Swarats­ingh yes­ter­day ac­knowl­edged that Trinidad Ce­ment Ltd’s de­ci­sion to raise ce­ment prices will place ad­di­tion­al pres­sure on con­sumers, while stress­ing that con­tin­ued en­gage­ment be­tween Gov­ern­ment and the pri­vate sec­tor re­mains cen­tral to nav­i­gat­ing ris­ing costs in the econ­o­my.

As na­tion­al ten­sions rise over crime, po­lice con­duct, and mount­ing calls for the Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice Al­lis­ter Gue­var­ro to step down, three of the coun­try’s busi­ness or­gan­i­sa­tions are urg­ing a calm, bal­anced, and non­po­lit­i­cal ap­proach to the coun­try’s deep­en­ing se­cu­ri­ty chal­lenges—is­sues that con­tin­ue to im­pact cit­i­zens, com­mu­ni­ties and the wider busi­ness sec­tor.