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.

While the Em­ploy­ers Con­sul­ta­tive As­so­ci­a­tion (ECA) is sat­is­fied that out­dat­ed labour leg­is­la­tion is be­ing up­dat­ed, the coun­try’s largest em­ploy­er body be­lieves that this process must take in­to ac­count what is hap­pen­ing in the wider econ­o­my.

On Jan­u­ary 26, 2026, the Speak­er of the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives, Jagdeo Singh, chaired the Pub­lic Ad­min­is­tra­tion and Ap­pro­pri­a­tions Com­mit­tee (Pt. 2) on the State’s ac­qui­si­tion of phar­ma­ceu­ti­cals.

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.

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.

Car­ni­val’s con­tri­bu­tion ex­tends well be­yond cul­tur­al pride. It is a com­plex eco­nom­ic sys­tem that gen­er­ates jobs, dri­ves for­eign ex­change and sus­tains en­tire cre­ative in­dus­tries when prop­er­ly sup­port­ed, pan­el­lists agreed dur­ing Term Fi­nance’s Well­ness Wednes­day we­bi­nar, Car­ni­val & Cul­ture – Fu­elling Eco­nom­ic Growth in T&T.

The Min­istry of Pub­lic Ad­min­is­tra­tion and Ar­ti­fi­cial In­tel­li­gence has of­fi­cial­ly launched an AI Acad­e­my, a six-month pi­lot pro­gramme de­signed to strength­en ar­ti­fi­cial in­tel­li­gence (AI) com­pe­ten­cies across T&T’s pub­lic ser­vice.

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

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).

Of­ten times in a dis­cus­sion around stock mar­ket ac­tiv­i­ty there is ref­er­ence to a “herd men­tal­i­ty”. This is the ten­den­cy to fol­low an es­tab­lished group or pat­tern of be­hav­ior with­out the crit­i­cal think­ing that an evolv­ing sit­u­a­tion would de­mand.

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.

By any se­ri­ous mea­sure, T&T’s stock mar­ket is in trou­ble. Not cycli­cal trou­ble. Not a short-term cor­rec­tion, but struc­tur­al trou­ble.