From mod­ernising ports and im­prov­ing cus­toms pro­ce­dures to build­ing an in­ter­na­tion­al lo­gis­tics com­pa­ny, one of 2026’s Busi­ness Hall of Fame in­ductees, Ram­nar­ine Ram­per­sad, be­lieves T&T has the po­ten­tial to be­come a lead­ing trad­ing gate­way for the Caribbean and Latin Amer­i­ca, but must first ad­dress the in­ef­fi­cien­cies hold­ing back its com­pet­i­tive­ness.

Trinidad and To­ba­go’s ar­chi­tec­ture, en­gi­neer­ing, con­struc­tion and in­te­ri­or de­sign pro­fes­sion­als must look be­yond the do­mes­tic mar­ket and po­si­tion their ex­per­tise to se­cure a greater share of the Caribbean’s build­ing and de­vel­op­ment ex­pen­di­ture.

Psy­cho­log­i­cal safe­ty, work­place cul­ture and em­ploy­ee well-be­ing came un­der the spot­light at the Amer­i­can Cham­ber of Com­merce of T&T (Am­cham TT) HSSE Con­fer­ence 2026, as ex­perts warned that some of the most sig­nif­i­cant risks fac­ing to­day’s work­force are no longer phys­i­cal, but psy­cho­log­i­cal.

The Gov­ern­ment has of­fi­cial­ly be­gun the process of seek­ing po­ten­tial buy­ers for state-owned as­sets ear­marked for di­vest­ment.

En­er­gy Min­is­ter Dr Roodal Mooni­lal says T&T is on the verge of sign­ing a key agree­ment with Venezuela that can pave the way to boost nat­ur­al gas pro­duc­tion and fur­ther re­vive this coun­try’s en­er­gy sec­tor.

Cari­CRIS has as­signed an in­vest­ment-grade cred­it rat­ings to the Gov­ern­ment of Ja­maica, with a sta­ble out­look, cit­ing the coun­try’s fis­cal com­mit­ments, debt-re­duc­tion strat­e­gy and con­tin­ued fi­nan­cial sec­tor sta­bil­i­ty de­spite the eco­nom­ic im­pact of Hur­ri­cane Melis­sa.

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.

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.

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.