Since my re­turn to Guardian Me­dia Ltd in March 2023, my BG View col­umn has de­vot­ed con­sid­er­able at­ten­tion to Re­pub­lic Fi­nan­cial Hold­ings Ltd (RFHL), the largest com­mer­cial bank­ing group in the Caribbean Com­mu­ni­ty (Cari­com).

an­drea.perez-sobers@guardian.co.tt29Busi­ness­es must treat cy­ber­se­cu­ri­ty as a board­room risk rather than an IT de­part­ment re­spon­si­bil­i­ty, as fail­ures in­volv­ing crit­i­cal sup­pli­ers, ar­ti­fi­cial in­tel­li­gence and es­sen­tial in­fra­struc­ture can dis­rupt op­er­a­tions, dam­age rep­u­ta­tions and ex­pose com­pa­nies to fi­nan­cial and reg­u­la­to­ry con­se­quences.

The Trinidad and To­ba­go Man­u­fac­tur­ers’ As­so­ci­a­tion (TTMA) is ex­plor­ing op­por­tu­ni­ties to ex­pand trade and in­vest­ment be­tween T&T and Venezuela, fol­low­ing dis­cus­sions with a del­e­ga­tion from Su­cre State, Venezuela, who vis­it­ed the coun­try for trade-re­lat­ed en­gage­ments and left yes­ter­day.

At 25, Jen­ni­ka Joe­field is the Chief Op­er­a­tions Of­fi­cer of Joe­field En­ter­prise Ltd, a small busi­ness that was gen­er­a­tions in the mak­ing.

For gen­er­a­tions, Caribbean pro­fes­sion­als seek­ing bet­ter ca­reer op­por­tu­ni­ties faced a fa­mil­iar choice: stay with­in the lo­cal em­ploy­ment mar­ket or mi­grate in search of work.

As T&T grap­ples with job loss­es in parts of the en­er­gy sec­tor, un­cer­tain­ty over the econ­o­my’s di­rec­tion and con­cerns about em­ploy­ment prospects, young peo­ple are be­ing en­cour­aged to see the cur­rent chal­lenges not as a dead end but as an op­por­tu­ni­ty to help shape their fu­ture.

US im­ports of crude oil and pe­tro­le­um prod­ucts from Trinidad and To­ba­go rose to an av­er­age 52,500 bar­rels per day (b/d) in the sec­ond quar­ter of 2026, the high­est quar­ter­ly rate since the third quar­ter of 2021.

Trinidad and To­ba­go could be­gin see­ing tan­gi­ble trade op­por­tu­ni­ties with Venezuela’s Su­cre State in the com­ing months, with agri­cul­tur­al im­ports, lo­cal food pro­cess­ing, tourism and in­dus­tri­al in­vest­ment among the ar­eas be­ing ex­plored dur­ing Tues­day’s Busi­ness Round­table at the Hilton Trinidad.

Trinidad and To­ba­go ex­port­ed TT$33.4 mil­lion in goods to Venezuela and im­port­ed TT$34.7 mil­lion in 2025, but the Gov­ern­ment is seek­ing to ex­pand trade as diplo­mat­ic re­la­tions be­tween the two coun­tries re­sume af­ter a year of fall­out.

For­mer min­is­ter in the Min­istry of Fi­nance Mar­i­ano Browne be­lieves Trinidad and To­ba­go has lost op­por­tu­ni­ties to strength­en trade with Venezuela and must now fo­cus on for­mal­is­ing com­mer­cial ac­tiv­i­ty be­tween the two coun­tries.

Ar­ti­fi­cial in­tel­li­gence is be­com­ing part of child­hood faster than many par­ents re­alse. Chil­dren and teenagers are us­ing AI chat­bots to an­swer ques­tions, help with home­work, cre­ate pic­tures and sto­ries, ex­plore ideas, prac­tise lan­guages and in­creas­ing­ly, to talk about their feel­ings and per­son­al prob­lems.

An­gos­tu­ra Hold­ings Ltd yes­ter­day re­port­ed prof­it af­ter tax of $87.97 mil­lion for the nine months end­ed Sep­tem­ber 30, 2026, which is a 15.36 per cent de­cline com­pared to the same pe­ri­od in 2025 when the com­pa­ny record­ed prof­its of $103.94 mil­lion.