First Cit­i­zens Bank is op­ti­mistic about the out­look for the T&T econ­o­my ac­cord­ing to its CEO Karen Dar­basie. How­ev­er, the group is still mind­ful of risks.

Pro­duc­tive dis­cus­sions be­tween a gov­ern­ment team and Pa­tri­ot­ic En­er­gies and Tech­nolo­gies Com­pa­ny Ltd and oth­er stake­hold­ers yes­ter­day.

With the re­cent de­crim­i­nal­i­sa­tion of mar­i­jua­na, most com­pa­nies in T&T are yet to de­vel­op a pol­i­cy that ad­dress­es the de­tec­tion or use of mar­i­jua­na in the work­place.

The Fac­ul­ty of Food and Agri­cul­ture at the Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies, St Au­gus­tine cam­pus used its re­cent cel­e­bra­tion of Eat Lo­cal Day to launch the In­ten­sive Quail Pro­duc­tion Unit.

The peo­ple of La Brea have once again lost out on eco­nom­ic ac­tiv­i­ty as Aus­tralian out­fit BHP has de­cid­ed to build its lat­est oil and gas plat­form out­side of T&T.

Met­al X En­gi­neer­ing Ltd host­ed its 60th an­niver­sary cel­e­bra­tion at the Au­di­to­ri­um Restau­rant and Lounge, Gov­ern­ment Cam­pus Port-of-Spain on last month.

In the com­pa­ny’s 2019 end of year fi­nan­cial state­ments, the First Cit­i­zens Group record­ed a prof­it be­fore tax of $1.06 bil­lion rep­re­sent­ing a 5.2 per cent growth when com­pared to 2018.

The Cen­tral Bank has ad­vised that it will soon pub­lish the stip­u­lat­ed guide­lines to fa­cil­i­tate the ex­change of the pa­per notes for the new poly­mer bills with­in the pe­ri­od of three months af­ter the dead­line date of De­cem­ber 31, 2019.

Dr Dil­lon Al­leyne, Deputy Di­rec­tor, Eco­nom­ic Com­mis­sion for Latin Amer­i­ca and the Caribbean (ECLAC) in Port-of-Spain at­trib­ut­es T&T’s low eco­nom­ic growth in 2019 to low en­er­gy prices and the clo­sure of busi­ness­es.

JMMB Group Lim­it­ed (JMMB Group) has ac­quired 22.5 per cent of the new Sagi­cor, Sagi­cor Fi­nan­cial Com­pa­ny Ltd (Sagi­cor).

First­Caribbean In­ter­na­tion­al Bank Ltd (FCIB) has reg­is­tered a $1.15 bil­lion prof­it for the fis­cal year end­ed Oc­to­ber 31.

De­spite the De­cem­ber 31, 2019 dead­line giv­en by the Cen­tral Bank to have the old $100 notes changed to the new poly­mer bill, some busi­ness­es have al­ready stopped ac­cept­ing the old bill.