Three years ago, the Jun­ta de Aviación Civ­il (JAC), the Do­mini­can Re­pub­lic’s civ­il avi­a­tion board, grant­ed ul­tra-low cost car­ri­er (UL­CC) Ara­jet Air­lines per­mis­sion to op­er­ate flights be­tween the Do­mini­can Re­pub­lic and Trinidad & To­ba­go. Ear­li­er this year, T&T signed an Air Ser­vices Agree­ment with the Do­mini­can Re­pub­lic clear­ing the way for sched­uled flights. How­ev­er, de­spite hav­ing per­mis­sion to fly, Ara­jet says the ear­li­est po­ten­tial start date for sched­uled flights is 2028.

Tra­cy To­bias has been for­mal­ly con­firmed as chief ex­ec­u­tive of­fi­cer of the Ex­port-Im­port Bank of Trinidad and To­ba­go (Ex­im­Bank), as the state-owned in­sti­tu­tion en­ters a new phase of lead­er­ship fol­low­ing the de­par­ture of for­mer CEO Navin Dook­er­an last De­cem­ber.

Trinidad and To­ba­go’s gross do­mes­tic prod­uct (GDP) in con­stant prices de­clined by 1.8 per cent in the first quar­ter of 2026, com­pared to the same pe­ri­od in 2025.

Com­ing on the heels of ma­jor top-lev­el ex­ec­u­tive an­nounce­ments across Re­pub­lic Fi­nan­cial Hold­ings Ltd (RFHL), the Port-of-Spain-head­quar­tered re­gion­al bank­ing group con­firmed that Ed­ward Ince, a di­rec­tor of its T&T sub­sidiary Re­pub­lic Bank Ltd, had re­signed.

Trinidad and To­ba­go’s eco­nom­ic out­look, the Gov­ern­ment’s fis­cal con­straints and un­re­solved pub­lic ser­vice back­pay oblig­a­tions are com­ing un­der scruti­ny as econ­o­mists and a for­mer min­is­ter in the Min­istry of Fi­nance weigh in on whether the coun­try’s re­ces­sion should be the cen­tral con­cern.

The Gov­ern­ment has grant­ed min­ing and pro­cess­ing li­cences to Stud­ley Park En­ter­prise Ltd (SPEL), paving the way for ex­pand­ed quar­ry op­er­a­tions in To­ba­go and what it says can bring jobs, in­vest­ment and in­creased eco­nom­ic ac­tiv­i­ty to the is­land.

Re­pub­lic Fi­nan­cial Hold­ings Lim­it­ed (RFHL) yes­ter­day an­nounced two ex­ec­u­tive ap­point­ments, with Paras­ram (Vic) Sal­ick­ram and David Robin­son set to take up se­nior po­si­tions at the fi­nan­cial hold­ings com­pa­ny and its T&T sub­sidiary Re­pub­lic Bank Ltd from Jan­u­ary 1, 2027, sub­ject to reg­u­la­to­ry ap­provals.

The In­ter­na­tion­al Mon­e­tary Fund (IMF) yes­ter­day re­flect­ed a World Bank re­port last week that the T&T econ­o­my de­clined by mi­nus 0.5 per cent last year and is pro­ject­ed to ex­pe­ri­ence re­al growth of 0.2 per cent this year.

Cen­tral Bank Gov­er­nor Lar­ry Howai has called for a bal­anced and co­or­di­nat­ed glob­al ap­proach to reg­u­lat­ing cryp­to as­sets, warn­ing that while dig­i­tal as­sets present op­por­tu­ni­ties for greater fi­nan­cial in­clu­sion, they al­so pose risks to fi­nan­cial sta­bil­i­ty, par­tic­u­lar­ly for small open economies like T&T.

Re­pub­lic Fi­nan­cial Hold­ings Ltd (RFHL) has re­versed its pub­licly an­nounced suc­ces­sion plan, re­plac­ing Richard Sam­my with Karen Yip Chuck less than nine months af­ter nam­ing him to suc­ceed Nigel Bap­tiste as head of the re­gion­al bank­ing group gi­ant.

Richard Sam­my, the em­bat­tled group vice pres­i­dent of Re­pub­lic Fi­nan­cial Hold­ings Ltd (RFHL), de­part­ed the re­gion's largest fi­nan­cial in­sti­tu­tion on Wednes­day, bank sources told Guardian Me­dia.

The Gov­ern­ment is sig­nalling a stronger fo­cus on trans­paren­cy and ac­count­abil­i­ty in pub­lic spend­ing, as it has in­creased fund­ing for the Of­fice of Pro­cure­ment Reg­u­la­tion (OPR) by 25 per cent in fis­cal 2027 as the agency con­tin­ues to raise con­cerns about weak­ness­es in the coun­try’s pro­cure­ment sys­tem.