PriceS­mart Inc’s Trinidad sub­sidiary in­creased its bor­row­ings by a fur­ther US$20.84 mil­lion dur­ing the third quar­ter end­ed May 31, tak­ing an­oth­er step to se­cure US dol­lar liq­uid­i­ty for its lo­cal op­er­a­tions as for­eign ex­change (FX) con­straints re­main a fea­ture of do­ing busi­ness in T&T

Pres­i­dent of the Siparia Cham­ber of Com­merce Emer­son Ched­die be­lieves that while bor­ough sta­tus in 2023 did not au­to­mat­i­cal­ly make Siparia a more de­vel­oped dis­trict, it has laid the foun­da­tion for busi­ness­es to grow.

As Trinidad and To­ba­go ag­gres­sive­ly push­es to re­verse its de­clin­ing hy­dro­car­bon out­put through new off­shore fron­tiers and cross-bor­der gas deals, a sober­ing glob­al re­port has cast a light on the en­vi­ron­men­tal cost of this re­vival.

En­tre­pre­neur­ial spir­it has en­er­gised the 2026 Trade and In­vest­ment Con­ven­tion (TIC), as sev­er­al small busi­ness­es flocked to the event hop­ing to el­e­vate their brands in what most ad­mit­ted was a try­ing eco­nom­ic pe­ri­od.

an­drea.perez-sobers@guardian.co.tt

Even as ma­jor com­pa­nies scale back op­er­a­tions, re­struc­ture, or ex­it parts of do­mes­tic mar­ket, busi­ness­es across Trinidad and To­ba­go say they are not ready to give up on the coun­try.

The Cen­tral Bank said yes­ter­day that it is about to im­ple­ment mea­sures that are ex­pect­ed to “pro­vide mean­ing­ful re­lief” on the long-stand­ing is­sue of the avail­abil­i­ty of for­eign ex­change in the near to medi­um term.

The chron­ic short­age of for­eign ex­change dom­i­nat­ed dis­cus­sions on day two of the Trade and In­vest­ment Con­ven­tion (TIC), as lo­cal man­u­fac­tur­ers high­light­ed to the Sun­day Busi­ness Guardian the ex­treme bank­ing hur­dles and par­al­lel mar­ket re­liance cur­rent­ly keep­ing their busi­ness­es alive.

Busi­ness­es, large and small, say they are be­ing forced to adapt quick­ly to re­main com­pet­i­tive as they nav­i­gate sup­ply dis­rup­tions, ris­ing costs and fluc­tu­at­ing raw ma­te­r­i­al prices.

The Food Dis­trib­u­tors As­so­ci­a­tion (FDA) has elect­ed its ex­ec­u­tive com­mit­tee for the up­com­ing term, with Jake Gillette, man­ag­ing di­rec­tor of West In­di­an Traders Ltd (WITL), ap­point­ed as chair­man.

Trinidad and To­ba­go’s fis­cal po­si­tion strength­ened dur­ing the first sev­en months of the 2026 fi­nan­cial year, with the Cen­tral Gov­ern­ment record­ing a small­er over­all deficit de­spite low­er en­er­gy rev­enues, as stronger col­lec­tions from non-en­er­gy sources helped off­set the de­cline.

The Min­istry of Fi­nance an­nounced yes­ter­day that Gov­ern­ment was suc­cess­ful in rais­ing an US$800 mil­lion sov­er­eign bond in the US mar­ket.

The Trinidad and To­ba­go Cham­ber of In­dus­try and Com­merce says its up­com­ing trade and in­vest­ment mis­sion to Cana­da will fo­cus on prepar­ing busi­ness­es to se­cure deals be­fore they board the plane.