En­er­gy econ­o­mist Gre­go­ry McGuire has warned that talk of an im­pend­ing en­er­gy boom in Trinidad and To­ba­go is pre­ma­ture, ar­gu­ing that new oil and gas projects will large­ly re­place de­clin­ing pro­duc­tion rather than de­liv­er sig­nif­i­cant growth.

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.

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.

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.

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).

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.

The ar­rival of a busi­ness del­e­ga­tion from Venezuela’s State of Su­cre presents an op­por­tu­ni­ty to strength­en eco­nom­ic ties be­tween T&T and the neigh­bour­ing Venezue­lan ter­ri­to­ry, even as geopo­lit­i­cal ten­sions have com­pli­cat­ed re­la­tions be­tween the two coun­tries in re­cent times.

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.

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

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

Trinidad and To­ba­go man­u­fac­tur­ers and ser­vice providers stand to ben­e­fit from NH In­ter­na­tion­al Caribbean Ltd’s EC$666 mil­lion (US$243 mil­lion) con­tract to re­de­vel­op St Lu­cia’s Hewanor­ra In­ter­na­tion­al Air­port, with op­por­tu­ni­ties span­ning con­struc­tion ma­te­ri­als, elec­tri­cal prod­ucts, plumb­ing, air con­di­tion­ing and spe­cial­ist sub­con­tract­ing.

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.