While the full de­tails of the meet­ing be­tween Prime Min­is­ter Stu­art Young and the Unit­ed States Sec­re­tary of State Mar­co Ru­bio in Ja­maica yes­ter­day is not yet known for­mer En­er­gy Min­is­ter, Kevin Ram­nar­ine, says un­cer­tain­ty still looms over this coun­try’s gas deals with Venezuela.

St. Vin­cent and the Grenadines Prime Min­is­ter Dr. Ralph Gon­salves, yes­ter­day warned that the re­gion could face se­vere eco­nom­ic prob­lems if the Unit­ed States goes ahead with a pro­pos­al to im­pose a port fee of one mil­lion US dol­lars per port call on any Chi­nese-built ves­sel call­ing at US ports.

T&T is not the on­ly Caribbean coun­try where ob­tain­ing for­eign ex­change is a prob­lem, ac­cord­ing to ex­ec­u­tive di­rec­tor, Caribbean Ex­port De­vel­op­ment Agency, Dr Damie Sinanan.

The US Gov­ern­ment’s pro­pos­al to im­pose huge fees on Chi­nese-built or Chi­nese-flagged ves­sels dock­ing at US ports could in­crease the cost of freight to the Caribbean by be­tween 50 and 60 per cent, which could re­sult in high­er prices on im­port­ed goods of 15 to 20 per cent.

As Trinidad and To­ba­go faces on­go­ing for­eign ex­change short­ages, Prime Min­is­ter Stu­art Young re­vealed that bankers have been re­cep­tive to dis­cus­sions on for­eign ex­change ac­ces­si­bil­i­ty and so­lu­tions to in­creas­ing bank fees.

The eyes of many busi­ness­peo­ple and or­di­nary cit­i­zens will be fo­cussed on White­hall to­day as the Gov­ern­ment meets with mem­bers of the bank­ing sec­tor to pave the way for­ward in tack­ling this coun­try's con­tin­ued forex cri­sis.

ANSA McAL Group CEO, An­tho­ny Sab­ga III, said yes­ter­day the com­pa­ny took the de­ci­sion to sus­pend its div­i­dends for three years in or­der to re­al­lo­cate cap­i­tal to fund fu­ture ac­qui­si­tions as well as con­tin­ue in­vest­ing in tech­nol­o­gy and au­toma­tion to dri­ve ef­fi­cien­cies and op­ti­mise sup­ply chains.

While this coun­try wel­comed the new US$129.83 mil­lion ter­mi­nal at the ANR Robin­son In­ter­na­tion­al Air­port, Crown Point, To­ba­go about a week ago, de­vel­op­men­tal econ­o­mist Dr Mar­lene Attzs says the fa­cil­i­ty should not be seen as just an­oth­er in­fra­struc­ture project - rather it must be a tool for eco­nom­ic trans­for­ma­tion, a cat­a­lyst for growth, job cre­ation and sus­tain­able de­vel­op­ment for the is­land.

The iron and steel plant that was once owned by in­ter­na­tion­al steel gi­ant Arcelor­Mit­tal at the Point Lisas In­dus­tri­al Es­tate in Cou­va is still not up and run­ning de­spite hav­ing new own­ers.

Busi­ness­woman Nan­di Man­dela, who is the grand­daugh­ter of South African free­dom fight­er and for­mer pres­i­dent, Nel­son Man­dela, be­lieves more needs to be done to thrust women in­to lead­er­ship roles in the world of busi­ness and in gen­er­al.

Lo­cal im­porters and ex­porters now have ac­cess to a lot more cold stor­age af­ter ma­jor­i­ty state-owned Caribbean Air­lines Ltd un­veiled a new 5,000 square feet cold stor­age unit on Thurs­day.

The ANSA McAL group yes­ter­day de­clared af­ter-tax prof­it of $675.54 mil­lion in its fi­nan­cial year end­ed De­cem­ber 31, 2024, a 13.6 per cent in­crease com­pared to the $584.48 mil­lion the com­pa­ny earned in 2023.