The Trinidad and To­ba­go econ­o­my de­clined by 0.5 per cent in 2025 and is pre­dict­ed to de­cline again this year, by 0.2 per cent, ac­cord­ing to the World Bank Group’s Latin Amer­i­ca and the Caribbean Eco­nom­ic Up­date.

The re­port, which was is­sued yes­ter­day and head­lined “Har­ness­ing the AI Tran­si­tion,” fore­cast that the T&T econ­o­my will grow by 2.5 per cent in 2027.

The av­er­age growth rate for the Latin Amer­i­ca and the Caribbean (LAC) re­gion is pro­ject­ed to be 2.2 per cent this year, broad­ly in line with the rate of 2.4 per cent record­ed in 2025.

The fi­nan­cial in­sti­tu­tion said that al­though av­er­age re­gion­al growth re­mains mod­est, di­verg­ing coun­try paths show that a stronger per­for­mance is pos­si­ble.

“With­in the Caribbean, the macro­eco­nom­ic land­scape is char­ac­terised by a stark di­ver­gence. On one track, Guyana’s un­prece­dent­ed oil-dri­ven ex­pan­sion con­tin­ues to pull up the sub-re­gion­al av­er­ages, com­ple­ment­ed by Suri­name’s ac­cel­er­at­ing in­vest­ments tied to off­shore dis­cov­er­ies and Trinidad and To­ba­go’s stead­ier, ma­ture nat­ur­al gas pro­duc­tion pro­file,” the re­port stat­ed.

Guyana grew by 19.3 per cent in 2025, is es­ti­mat­ed to grow 23.7 per cent this year and 18.7 per cent in 2027.

The re­port said sev­er­al coun­tries mak­ing sound and durable pol­i­cy choic­es are de­liv­er­ing stronger re­sults, in­clud­ing faster growth con­sis­tent­ly above three to four per cent, more in­vest­ment, and greater mar­ket con­fi­dence.

“Latin Amer­i­ca and the Caribbean has the po­ten­tial to achieve stronger and more am­bi­tious growth. Coun­tries that have main­tained sound macro­eco­nom­ic frame­works, strength­ened in­sti­tu­tions, and ad­vanced re­forms are demon­strat­ing that stronger growth is pos­si­ble,” said Su­sana Cordeiro Guer­ra, World Bank Vice Pres­i­dent for Latin Amer­i­ca and the Caribbean.

“The re­gion has sig­nif­i­cant tal­ent and re­sources. The pri­or­i­ty now is to build on these strengths through con­sis­tent poli­cies and in­vest­ment that can raise pro­duc­tiv­i­ty, cre­ate bet­ter jobs, and in­crease in­comes,” she added.

Ja­maica’s eco­nom­ic growth of 0.2 per cent last year will de­cline to mi­nus -0.8 per cent this year, with the fore­cast for 2027 be­ing three per cent. St Lu­cia’s growth of mi­nus 0.6 per cent last year will be re­placed by a pos­i­tive 1.1 per cent this year and a fore­cast of 2.1 per cent for 2027.

Ac­cord­ing to the re­port, The Ba­hamas will record growth of three per cent this year, down from 3.8 per cent last year, with the fore­cast be­ing 2.5 per cent in 2027, while Bar­ba­dos’ growth of 2.7 per cent this year will de­cline to two per cent next year, with a fore­cast of 2.5 per cent in 2027.

The World Bank re­port notes that the risks to the re­gion are tilt­ed to the down­side. En­er­gy price volatil­i­ty could stall dis­in­fla­tion and keep cen­tral banks cau­tious, pro­long­ing the high re­al in­ter­est rates that con­strain cred­it and in­vest­ment.

It said high debt and in­ter­est bur­dens con­tin­ue to lim­it fis­cal space and crowd out pub­lic in­vest­ment. El Niño could fur­ther dis­rupt agri­cul­ture and hy­dropow­er and push up food and en­er­gy prices.

The re­port ex­am­ines how ar­ti­fi­cial in­tel­li­gence could raise pro­duc­tiv­i­ty while re­shap­ing work across the re­gion. Firms are al­ready adopt­ing AI broad­ly, though rarely in ways that reach their core busi­ness process­es.

Among the wider pop­u­la­tion, a me­di­an of 17 per cent of work­ing-age adults across the re­gion re­port us­ing GenAI tools, rough­ly half the rate in the US and Cana­da. In both cas­es, the main bar­ri­ers to pro­duc­tive use are not cost or ac­cess, but man­age­r­i­al know-how, work­force skills, and firms’ ca­pac­i­ty to re­or­gan­ise around new tools.

“AI is al­ready here. The ques­tion is whether the re­gion can use it pro­duc­tive­ly,” said Car­los Ro­driguez-Caste­lan, World Bank Act­ing Chief Econ­o­mist for Latin Amer­i­ca and the Caribbean.

“A pow­er­ful tool is less rel­e­vant if work­ers and firms lack the ca­pac­i­ty to act on what it pro­duces. Gov­ern­ments that in­vest now in skills and firm ca­pa­bil­i­ties will like­ly see re­al gains.”

The re­port iden­ti­fies that gen­er­a­tive AI is al­ready chang­ing cog­ni­tive work: rough­ly eight per cent of the work­force holds high-skill, knowl­edge-in­ten­sive jobs that could be en­hanced by AI, while a sim­i­lar share of the work­force, around 10 per cent, works in rou­tine cog­ni­tive oc­cu­pa­tions whose tasks are more ex­posed to au­toma­tion. (CMC)