Gov­ern­ment is not rul­ing out with­draw­ing from the Her­itage and Sta­bil­i­sa­tion Fund (HSF) if rev­enue falls short of its $55.36 bil­lion pro­jec­tion for 2026.

The Trinidad and To­ba­go Man­u­fac­tur­ers’ As­so­ci­a­tion (TTMA) has wel­comed sev­er­al of the Gov­ern­ment’s 2026 bud­get mea­sures aimed at im­prov­ing trade fa­cil­i­ta­tion, dig­i­tal­i­sa­tion and busi­ness com­pet­i­tive­ness, but has cau­tioned that new fi­nanc­ing terms un­der the Ex­port-Im­port Bank (Ex­im­bank) must not dis­ad­van­tage small and medi­um-sized man­u­fac­tur­ers.

In his 2026 bud­get pre­sen­ta­tion in Par­lia­ment yes­ter­day, Fi­nance Min­is­ter Dave Tan­coo un­veiled a com­pre­hen­sive en­er­gy strat­e­gy de­signed to se­cure T&T’s eco­nom­ic fu­ture.

As the Gov­ern­ment plans its 2026 fis­cal strat­e­gy, three ex­perts cau­tioned that the new Of­fice of For­eign As­sets Con­trol (OFAC) li­cence for the Drag­on Gas deal with Venezuela could have sig­nif­i­cant im­pli­ca­tions for T&T’s en­er­gy sec­tor and over­all bud­get pro­jec­tions for fis­cal 2026.

For­eign di­rect in­vest­ment re­mains one of the most sig­nif­i­cant stim­uli of for­eign cur­ren­cy earn­ing po­ten­tial for T&T. For­eign in­vest­ment in­jects for­eign cap­i­tal di­rect­ly, fund­ing projects and rev­enue streams which gen­er­ate ex­port rev­enue with­out the need for im­me­di­ate out­flow oblig­a­tions.

As the na­tion awaits with bat­ed breath for the un­veil­ing of the 2026 fis­cal pack­age by Fi­nance Min­is­ter Dave Tan­coo, two lead­ing econ­o­mists have weighed in on the chal­lenges ahead.

Bond­hold­ers of three com­pa­nies con­trolled by Ja­maican-Cana­di­an in­vestor Michael Lee-Chin are prepar­ing for a de­ci­sive, but as yet un­sched­uled, vote next month that could de­ter­mine the fate of more than US$364 mil­lion in debt ex­pe­ri­enc­ing ‘Events of De­fault’ — and po­ten­tial­ly, a sig­nif­i­cant share­hold­ing in NCB Fi­nan­cial Group, which he chairs.

Grena­da’s for­mer sen­ate pres­i­dent Chester Humphrey has cau­tioned that ap­prov­ing a US re­quest to in­stall radar equip­ment at the Mau­rice Bish­op In­ter­na­tion­al Air­port could be a “his­toric dis­as­ter”.

Frus­trat­ed cus­tomers are de­mand­ing an­swers af­ter Trin­ba­go Ex­press T&T Ltd abrupt­ly shut its doors, leav­ing bar­rels, box­es and con­tain­ers strand­ed at the port and the fate of goods worth hun­dreds of thou­sands of dol­lars un­cer­tain.

The Ch­agua­nas Cham­ber of In­dus­try and Com­merce (CCIC) yes­ter­day ap­plaud­ed San­dals Re­sorts In­ter­na­tion­al on the an­nounce­ment of a EC$500 mil­lion Beach­es fam­i­ly re­sort in St Vin­cent and the Grenadines.

Rat­ing agency Caribbean In­for­ma­tion and Cred­it Rat­ing Ser­vices Ltd (Cari­CRIS) is reaf­firm­ing a “high cred­it­wor­thi­ness “rat­ings of the ANSA Mer­chant Bank Ltd (AM­BL Group).

The Grena­da gov­ern­ment is propos­ing that a tri-lat­er­al joint com­mis­sion be es­tab­lished with Venezuela and St Vin­cent and the Grenadines to guide the process for de­mar­cat­ing mar­itime bound­aries.