The Co-op­er­a­tive Cred­it Union League of T&T (CCULTT) has signed two sep­a­rate Mem­o­ran­da of Un­der­stand­ings to ad­vance the move­ment and bring greater ser­vice and ef­fi­cien­cy to mem­bers.

Tra­di­tion­al­ly, T&T has not con­sid­ered the in­clu­sion of green bonds, nor the use of the car­bon mar­kets as pos­si­ble in­no­v­a­tive sources of fi­nanc­ing that can be in­te­grat­ed in­to the na­tion­al bud­getary process, large­ly as a re­sult of the de­pen­dence on the en­er­gy sec­tor for pros­per­i­ty.

AS Bry­den & Sons Hold­ings Ltd is with­out a doubt one of T&T’s largest and old­est im­porters and dis­trib­u­tors of prod­ucts. Orig­i­nal­ly found­ed in Bar­ba­dos in 1898 by Arthur Sid­ney Bry­den, the Trinidad of­fice com­menced op­er­a­tions in Oc­to­ber 1923 un­der Arthur’s son William Fran­cis Bry­den “and can boast of be­ing one of the most suc­cess­ful busi­ness­es of its kind and gen­er­a­tion in the coun­try,” ac­cord­ing to the com­pa­ny’s web­site.

The Caribbean Sea serves as a vi­tal link be­tween North and South Amer­i­ca, and is a key route to the At­lantic Ocean, rich in ma­rine re­sources and ecosys­tems. The Greater Caribbean com­pris­es 25 coun­tries and 12 ter­ri­to­ries, boast­ing a coast­line of 25,738 km, which rep­re­sents 1.6 per cent of the world’s to­tal coast­line.

Econ­o­mists Dr Mar­lene Attzs and Dr Vaalmik­ki Ar­joon have said that T&T’s cur­rent forex sit­u­a­tion is un­sus­tain­able and there is need for ex­am­i­na­tion of long-term ef­fects and im­ple­men­ta­tion of more sus­tain­able so­lu­tions.

I note the re­cent com­men­tary on T&T’s eco­nom­ic per­for­mance (in­clud­ing in the last Sun­day Busi­ness Guardian), which leans sig­nif­i­cant­ly on po­lit­i­cal rhetoric. This has re­sult­ed in a dim and one-sided view of the econ­o­my. There are es­tab­lished lo­cal econ­o­mists and by com­par­i­son, new re­cruits adding their voic­es to the ques­tion of the lega­cy of the past decade. Key as­pects of the analy­sis are coloured with what can be de­scribed as hy­per­bole. The ef­fect is that some of the eco­nom­ic com­men­ta­tors’ pre­scrip­tions lack ob­jec­tiv­i­ty in their analy­sis. This ar­ti­cle treats those po­si­tions that may be at vari­ance with the da­ta and ex­am­ines the facts that lay at the heart of our eco­nom­ic per­for­mance over the past decade.

In a pre­vi­ous ar­ti­cle, I ad­dressed some of the key dif­fer­ences be­tween de­ferred an­nu­ities of­fered by in­sur­ance com­pa­nies and re­tire­ment prod­ucts sold by mu­tu­al fund providers.

This coun­try has re­ceived US$543,259 in grant fund­ing to as­sist in im­ple­ment­ing na­tion­al oblig­a­tions un­der the first part of the Ki­gali Im­ple­men­ta­tion Plan reg­u­lat­ing the pro­duc­tion and con­sump­tion of ozone-de­plet­ing sub­stances.

T&T, like oth­er de­vel­op­men­tal coun­tries in the Caribbean, is still fac­ing some foun­da­tion­al chal­lenges when it comes to im­ple­men­ta­tion and the us­age of tech­nol­o­gy to gain ad­vance­ments, says Jean-Michel Bau­doin, chief in­for­ma­tion of­fi­cer and gen­er­al man­ag­er of the Tech­nol­o­gy and Trans­for­ma­tion De­part­ment of the In­ter-Amer­i­can De­vel­op­ment Bank (IDB).

Shel­don Stephen is on a mis­sion to raise the stage for Car­ni­val through pro­duc­tion, in­vest­ment and spec­ta­cle.

Min­is­ter of Dig­i­tal Trans­for­ma­tion, Has­sel Bac­chus, is re­it­er­at­ing the im­por­tance of in­no­va­tion and dig­i­tal trans­for­ma­tion which are crit­i­cal el­e­ments in eco­nom­ic de­vel­op­ment.

Lec­tur­er in in­dus­tri­al re­la­tions at the Cipri­ani Col­lege of Labour and Co-op­er­a­tive Stud­ies, Jan­ice John­son-Lorde who is al­so a busi­ness own­er, be­lieves that less cash should be used to con­duct busi­ness.