At the Na­tion­al En­ter­pris­es Ltd (NEL) an­nu­al meet­ing yes­ter­day, a con­cerned share­hold­er drilled the out­go­ing chair, In­grid Lash­ley, with sev­er­al point­ed ques­tions con­cern­ing the gov­er­nance of the or­gan­i­sa­tion.  

CIBC Caribbean Bank yes­ter­day re­port­ed net in­come of US$114.8 mil­lion for the nine months end­ed Ju­ly 31, 2025, a 47.3 per cent de­cline com­pared with $217.7 mil­lion for the same pe­ri­od last year.

Lo­cal dis­trib­u­tor AS Bry­den & Sons Hold­ings (AS­BH) has pur­chased a 50 per cent in­ter­est in Bar­ba­di­an im­porter and dis­trib­u­tor, Arm­strong Agen­cies Ltd (AAL).

For­eign ex­change spend­ing via cred­it card us­age has in­creased by over US$1.5 bil­lion dol­lars in the past decade.

Bet­ter known as a com­mer­cial bank, Sco­tia’s in­sur­ance of­fer­ing is be­com­ing an emerg­ing force in T&T’s fi­nan­cial sec­tor.  

The pri­vate sec­tor is be­ing en­cour­aged to play a role in the de­vel­op­ment of T&T’s dig­i­tal econ­o­my.

En­er­gy-dri­ven economies with small pop­u­la­tions of­ten bear the brunt of pub­lic crit­i­cism for CO2 emis­sions when peo­ple dis­cuss emis­sions per capi­ta. This met­ric masks the glob­al con­tri­bu­tion of emis­sions from ma­jor economies.

Hy­dro­car­bons have been the main­stay of the T&T econ­o­my, con­tribut­ing about 36 per cent of GDP and about 80 per cent of ex­ports since 2020. Con­tin­ued re­liance on this sec­tor, how­ev­er, pos­es a threat, giv­en glob­al volatil­i­ty of en­er­gy mar­kets, de­clin­ing lo­cal pro­duc­tion and in­creased em­pha­sis on al­ter­na­tive en­er­gy. While the con­tri­bu­tion by the non-en­er­gy sec­tor to GDP has trend­ed up­wards, di­ver­si­fi­ca­tion is nec­es­sary to re­duce the de­pen­dence on hy­dro­car­bons and to po­si­tion the coun­try to achieve long-term re­silience and glob­al com­pet­i­tive­ness.

There is no dis­pute that the T&T econ­o­my is in a state of cri­sis, with the coun­try’s net for­eign re­serves be­ing de­plet­ed at an alarm­ing pace, a dys­func­tion­al for­eign ex­change regime, an over­val­ued ex­change rate, and a 2025 bud­get that is in deep deficit and is be­ing fund­ed by bor­row­ings and draw­downs from T&T’s Her­itage Sta­bil­i­sa­tion Fund.

As the UNC ad­min­is­tra­tion pre­pares to de­liv­er its first na­tion­al bud­get, key busi­ness or­gan­i­sa­tions like the T&T Coali­tion of Ser­vices In­dus­tries (TTC­SI) and Am­cham T&T have pre­sent­ed a uni­fied vi­sion for a di­ver­si­fied and re­silient econ­o­my.

De­spite the threat of war in the Caribbean basin where large multi­na­tion­al en­er­gy gi­ants cur­rent­ly op­er­ate, US en­er­gy econ­o­mist Fran­cis­co Monal­di is op­ti­mistic that these in­vestors will con­tin­ue to in­vest in T&T and the rest of the re­gion.

Cus­tomers of ship­ping com­pa­ny Trin­ba­go Ex­press con­tin­ue to ex­press frus­tra­tion and anx­i­ety over long-de­layed ship­ments and a lack of com­mu­ni­ca­tion from the com­pa­ny’s lead­er­ship.