A sur­vey of more than 2,500 busi­ness­es across the Caribbean has shown that while there has been an in­crease in the num­ber of or­gan­i­sa­tions that have a strat­e­gy in place for dig­i­tal trans­for­ma­tion (77 per cent in 2024 vs 61 per cent in 2022), 60 per cent of those sur­veyed re­port­ed be­ing de­layed in the roll out of their dig­i­tal trans­for­ma­tion plan.

Op­po­si­tion leader, Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar, yes­ter­day called on the Gov­ern­ment to amend the Pub­lic Pro­cure­ment and Dis­pos­al of Pub­lic Prop­er­ty Act to en­sure that the sale of Cli­co, the Mag­dale­na Grand ho­tel in To­ba­go and the Petrotrin re­fin­ery in Pointe-a-Pierre falls un­der the Of­fice of Pro­cure­ment Reg­u­la­tor.

The Bankers As­so­ci­a­tion of Trinidad and To­ba­go (BATT) has ex­pressed con­cern about the pro­pos­al by the Min­is­ter of Fi­nance to in­tro­duce leg­is­la­tion to en­cour­age en­er­gy sec­tor com­pa­nies to re­mit all their tax­es in US dol­lars.

The day af­ter he an­nounced the Gov­ern­ment's plan to sell 49 per cent of Cli­co, Min­is­ter of Fi­nance, Colm Im­bert, nom­i­nat­ed four new di­rec­tors to the board of the in­sur­ance com­pa­ny in his ca­pac­i­ty as Cor­po­ra­tion Sole.

The Em­ploy­ers’ Con­sul­ta­tive As­so­ci­a­tion (ECA) says it is deeply con­cerned that the 2025 bud­get high­lights a trou­bling un­der­ly­ing is­sue—there re­mains a sig­nif­i­cant deficit in nu­mer­a­cy and lit­er­a­cy skills with­in our pop­u­la­tion.

Strate­gic se­cu­ri­ty con­sul­tant, Garvin Heer­ah has warned that the ris­ing crime lev­els will turn po­ten­tial for­eign in­vestors away from in­vest­ing in T&T, which can hurt its econ­o­my.

The Ba­hamas gov­ern­ment has wel­comed the lat­est re­port from the US-based glob­al cred­it rat­ings agency, Stan­dard & Poors (S&P), that ac­knowl­edged the coun­try’s “ro­bust” re­cov­ery and the re­duc­tion in the fis­cal deficit.

As Southex marks its 34th year, CEO George Singh be­lieves the an­nu­al ex­po of­fers a valu­able plat­form for small busi­ness­es to thrive—one that should be repli­cat­ed to stim­u­late eco­nom­ic de­vel­op­ment across the coun­try.

While Gov­ern­ment does not wish to place ad­di­tion­al stress on the small busi­ness sec­tor, this can in fact ma­te­ri­alise with the pro­posed in­crease in min­i­mum wage in the pub­lic sec­tor from $20.50 an hour to $22.50 an hour, says Garvin Joe­field, econ­o­mist with the Eco­nom­ic In­tel­li­gence Unit at Re­pub­lic Bank Ltd.

This col­umn, on page 3 of the Busi­ness Guardian, has long been in favour of the pri­vati­sa­tion of state as­sets, on the lo­cal stock ex­change, in or­der to gen­er­ate long-term wealth for the cit­i­zens of T&T.

As con­cerns over po­lit­i­cal un­rest in Venezuela con­tin­ue, and the un­cer­tain­ty of who will be the next Unit­ed States pres­i­dent, Na­tion­al Gas Com­pa­ny (NGC) chair­man Dr Joseph Ish­mael Khan is cau­tious­ly op­ti­mistic that the nat­ur­al gas will flow, fol­low­ing the 30-year ex­plo­ration and pro­duc­tion li­cence for the Drag­on Gas deal.

Cur­tis Williams, To­ba­go chair­man of the Trinidad and To­ba­go Cham­ber of In­dus­try and Com­merce, yes­ter­day de­scribed the de­ci­sion by the Gov­ern­ment to sell or lease the Mag­dale­na Grand Beach and Golf Re­sort as an ex­cel­lent move.