Trinidad Ce­ment Ltd (TCL) yes­ter­day in­formed its cus­tomers—most­ly hard­ware stores, con­trac­tors and house­holds look­ing to do ren­o­va­tions—that the ex-fac­to­ry price of its ce­ment bags would in­crease by 15 per cent next week Mon­day.

As na­tion­al ten­sions rise over crime, po­lice con­duct, and mount­ing calls for the Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice Al­lis­ter Gue­var­ro to step down, three of the coun­try’s busi­ness or­gan­i­sa­tions are urg­ing a calm, bal­anced, and non­po­lit­i­cal ap­proach to the coun­try’s deep­en­ing se­cu­ri­ty chal­lenges—is­sues that con­tin­ue to im­pact cit­i­zens, com­mu­ni­ties and the wider busi­ness sec­tor.

Rock Hard Ce­ment is af­firm­ing its com­mit­ment to hold­ing its prices steady, even as T&T’s con­struc­tion sec­tor braces for what can be a sig­nif­i­cant cost shock, fol­low­ing lo­cal ce­ment pro­duc­er, TCL’s sig­nal that it in­tends to in­crease its prices.

Most may as­so­ciate last week’s T&T En­er­gy Con­fer­ence with oil and gas, but the event al­so served as a show­case for re­new­able op­tions.

Econ­o­mist Dr Ronald Ramkissooon be­lieves that lo­cal gov­ern­ment cor­po­ra­tions should be­come more ef­fi­cient and even en­gage in ac­tiv­i­ties that would raise their own rev­enue, giv­en the com­plaints by some cor­po­ra­tions that they do not re­ceive suf­fi­cient funds from the cen­tral gov­ern­ment.

The clo­sure of bars and restau­rants over the past few months has sharp­ened con­cerns about the di­rec­tion of the econ­o­my, bring­ing in­to fo­cus slow­er ac­tiv­i­ty in the ser­vices sec­tor and re­newed anx­i­ety about em­ploy­ment, pub­lic fi­nances, and so­cial sta­bil­i­ty.

For­mer min­is­ter in the Min­istry of Fi­nance, Mar­i­ano Browne, is warn­ing that em­ploy­ment loss­es in the bar and restau­rant sec­tor are an im­por­tant sig­nal, as he re­spond­ed to re­ports of mul­ti­ple clo­sures in the leisure.

Re­pub­lic Fi­nan­cial Hold­ings Ltd (RFHL) yes­ter­day an­nounced the ap­point­ment of Richard S. Sam­my as group pres­i­dent and CEO of the fi­nan­cial ser­vices group and pres­i­dent and man­ag­ing di­rec­tor of Re­pub­lic Bank Ltd, with ef­fect from Jan­u­ary 1, 2027.

The Trinidad and To­ba­go Cham­ber of In­dus­try and Com­merce (T&T Cham­ber) yes­ter­day called for a phased ap­proach to the in­crease in the price of nat­ur­al gas to light man­u­fac­tur­ers, warn­ing that ris­ing costs for man­u­fac­tur­ers could have neg­a­tive knock-on ef­fects for con­sumers and ex­ports.

The Pri­vate Phar­ma­cy Re­tail Busi­ness As­so­ci­a­tion (PPR­BA) has ex­pressed grave con­cern over com­ments made last week by Fair Trade Com­mis­sion (FTC) ex­ec­u­tive di­rec­tor Be­van Nar­i­nesingh re­gard­ing the Com­mis­sion’s ca­pac­i­ty to en­force com­pe­ti­tion reg­u­la­tions. Nar­i­nesingh told the me­dia that the FTC’s en­force­ment ca­pa­bil­i­ties had been con­strained by the ab­sence of a board for the past eight months.

PANA­MA CITY–Min­is­ter of Fi­nance Dav­en­dranath Tan­coo says leg­is­la­tion to make pri­vate pen­sions tax free has been draft­ed and is now be­fore Cab­i­net, with the mea­sure ex­pect­ed to be in­clud­ed in a Fi­nance Bill due for Par­lia­ment by late Feb­ru­ary or ear­ly March.

Over the past 20 years, Trinidad and To­ba­go’s agri­cul­ture sec­tor has stag­nat­ed and de­clined, with its GDP con­tri­bu­tion falling be­low 1 per cent in re­cent years as the en­er­gy sec­tor has tak­en cen­tre stage. In the midst of de­clin­ing oil prices in 2015, the Gov­ern­ment pushed for di­ver­si­fi­ca­tion, but prob­lems in­clud­ing low pro­duc­tion, the ef­fects of cli­mate change, and a lack of fi­nance have re­mained. Small­hold­er farms that are dis­persed and ex­pe­ri­ence ex­pen­sive in­puts, in­ad­e­quate in­fra­struc­ture, have to con­tend with the con­se­quences of cli­mate change, such as de­creased rain­fall and flood­ing. Our lo­cal com­pet­i­tive­ness and val­ue ad­di­tion have been ham­pered by poor post-har­vest fa­cil­i­ties, a dis­or­gan­ised mar­ket and in­sti­tu­tion­al flaws. Re­liance on food im­ports is made worse by land degra­da­tion, un­pro­duc­tiv­i­ty and in­suf­fi­cient sup­port for re­search and de­vel­op­ment.