GEISHA KOW­LESSAR ALON­ZO

New do­mes­tic eco­nom­ic in­di­ca­tors re­leased in the Cen­tral Bank of T&T’s June 2026 Eco­nom­ic Dat­a­Pack sug­gest that ac­tiv­i­ty in key ar­eas of the lo­cal econ­o­my weak­ened dur­ing the first quar­ter of 2026, with de­clines in con­struc­tion-re­lat­ed de­mand, busi­ness in­vest­ment and ve­hi­cle pur­chas­es high­light­ing per­sis­tent chal­lenges in the non-en­er­gy sec­tor.

The da­ta, which track do­mes­tic eco­nom­ic ac­tiv­i­ty through mea­sures such as ce­ment sales, ce­ment pro­duc­tion, mo­tor ve­hi­cle sales and ve­hi­cle reg­is­tra­tions, show that sev­er­al in­di­ca­tors de­te­ri­o­rat­ed af­ter a mixed per­for­mance through­out 2025. Par­tic­u­lar­ly no­table were sharp de­clines in com­mer­cial ve­hi­cle sales, to­tal ve­hi­cle reg­is­tra­tions and lo­cal ce­ment sales, all of which are com­mon­ly used as barom­e­ters of busi­ness con­fi­dence, con­sumer spend­ing and con­struc­tion ac­tiv­i­ty.

The fig­ures pro­vide one of the clear­est snap­shots yet of how the do­mes­tic econ­o­my was per­form­ing out­side of the en­er­gy sec­tor at the start of 2026, amid on­go­ing con­cerns over slug­gish growth, ris­ing busi­ness costs and the need to strength­en non-en­er­gy eco­nom­ic ac­tiv­i­ty.

Con­struc­tion ac­tiv­i­ty un­der pres­sure

Among the most con­cern­ing trends is the con­tin­ued de­cline in lo­cal ce­ment sales, a key in­di­ca­tor of con­struc­tion ac­tiv­i­ty.

Sales fell from 127,000 tonnes in the sec­ond quar­ter of 2024 to 113,000 tonnes in the third quar­ter, be­fore slip­ping fur­ther to 108,000 tonnes in the fi­nal quar­ter of that year.

The mar­ket showed lit­tle im­prove­ment through 2025.

Sales edged up slight­ly to 110,000 tonnes in the first quar­ter and re­mained rel­a­tive­ly sta­ble at 108,000 tonnes in the sec­ond quar­ter be­fore de­clin­ing to 105,000 tonnes in the third quar­ter.

The sharpest de­te­ri­o­ra­tion came in the fi­nal quar­ter of 2025 when sales dropped to 92,000 tonnes, the low­est lev­el in the se­ries. Al­though sales re­cov­ered mar­gin­al­ly to 95,000 tonnes in the first quar­ter of 2026, they re­mained 25 per cent be­low the lev­el in the sec­ond quar­ter of 2024.

The trend sug­gests that pri­vate con­struc­tion ac­tiv­i­ty and de­mand for build­ing ma­te­ri­als re­main sub­dued de­spite on­go­ing gov­ern­ment in­fra­struc­ture projects and ef­forts to stim­u­late eco­nom­ic di­ver­si­fi­ca­tion.

Ce­ment pro­duc­tion fol­lowed a sim­i­lar, though less se­vere, tra­jec­to­ry.

Out­put fell from 189,000 tonnes in the sec­ond quar­ter of 2024 to 176,000 tonnes in the third quar­ter and 163,000 tonnes in the fourth quar­ter.

Pro­duc­tion re­bound­ed strong­ly dur­ing the first half of 2025, reach­ing 181,000 tonnes in the first quar­ter and peak­ing at 196,000 tonnes in the sec­ond quar­ter.

How­ev­er, that mo­men­tum proved short-lived.

Pro­duc­tion slipped to 177,000 tonnes in the third quar­ter of 2025 and 159,000 tonnes in the fourth quar­ter, be­fore re­cov­er­ing just mar­gin­al­ly to 160,000 tonnes in the open­ing quar­ter of 2026.

The de­cline in out­put along­side weak­er sales sug­gests man­u­fac­tur­ers may have been ad­just­ing pro­duc­tion to align with soft­er de­mand con­di­tions.

Ve­hi­cle sales re­flect weak­er spend­ing

The au­to­mo­tive sec­tor al­so dis­played signs of weak­en­ing de­mand.

New mo­tor ve­hi­cle sales de­clined from 2,978 units in the sec­ond quar­ter of 2024 to 2,904 units in the third quar­ter be­fore re­cov­er­ing to 3,123 units in the fourth quar­ter. Ac­tiv­i­ty then slowed in ear­ly 2025, with sales falling to 2,691 units.

The sec­ond half of 2025, how­ev­er, de­liv­ered a tem­po­rary re­bound. Sales in­creased to 2,776 units in the sec­ond quar­ter, 2,987 units in the third quar­ter and reached a high of 3,273 units in the fourth quar­ter.

The re­cov­ery was re­versed abrupt­ly in the first quar­ter of 2026 when new ve­hi­cle sales plunged to 2,226 units, a de­cline of more than 1,000 units com­pared with the pre­vi­ous quar­ter and the weak­est quar­ter­ly per­for­mance in the pe­ri­od un­der re­view.

The de­te­ri­o­ra­tion sug­gests house­holds may have be­come more cau­tious amid per­sis­tent cost-of-liv­ing pres­sures and broad­er eco­nom­ic un­cer­tain­ty.

Per­haps the most trou­bling trend in the dataset is the per­for­mance of com­mer­cial ve­hi­cle sales, which of­ten serve as a proxy for busi­ness in­vest­ment ac­tiv­i­ty.

Com­mer­cial ve­hi­cle sales have been on a large­ly un­in­ter­rupt­ed down­ward path since the sec­ond quar­ter of 2024. Sales fell from 1,071 units in the sec­ond quar­ter to 927 units in the third quar­ter of that year be­fore re­cov­er­ing slight­ly to 986 units in the fourth quar­ter.

Dur­ing 2025, sales slipped again to 927 units in the first quar­ter and rose mod­est­ly to 970 units in the sec­ond quar­ter.

There­after, the de­cline ac­cel­er­at­ed, with sales falling to 799 units in the third quar­ter, 724 units in the fourth quar­ter and just 560 units in the first quar­ter of 2026.

Over­all, com­mer­cial ve­hi­cle sales con­tract­ed by al­most 48 per cent over the pe­ri­od.

Reg­is­tra­tions al­so fall sharply

Mo­tor ve­hi­cle reg­is­tra­tion da­ta re­in­force the pic­ture of slow­ing eco­nom­ic ac­tiv­i­ty.

To­tal ve­hi­cle reg­is­tra­tions stood at 5,608 units in the sec­ond quar­ter of 2024 and rose slight­ly to 5,646 units in Q3 be­fore reach­ing 6,280 units in the fourth quar­ter. Reg­is­tra­tions then de­clined to 5,310 units in the first quar­ter of 2025 and 5,185 units in the sec­ond quar­ter.

A re­cov­ery fol­lowed in the sec­ond half of 2025, with reg­is­tra­tions in­creas­ing to 5,734 units in Q3 and then 6,195 units in the fourth quar­ter.

Yet once again, the first quar­ter of 2026 marked a sig­nif­i­cant re­ver­sal. Reg­is­tra­tions dropped to 4,585 units, rep­re­sent­ing the low­est read­ing in the dataset.

Pri­vate ve­hi­cle reg­is­tra­tions record­ed a sim­i­lar pat­tern, peak­ing at 5,011 units in the fourth quar­ter of 2025 be­fore falling dra­mat­i­cal­ly to 3,634 units in the first quar­ter of 2026.

Com­mer­cial ve­hi­cle reg­is­tra­tions al­so de­clined steadi­ly, from 1,463 units in the sec­ond quar­ter of 2024 to 951 units by the first quar­ter of 2026.

Man­u­fac­tur­ing ex­port ac­tiv­i­ty drops

T&T’s man­u­fac­tur­ing ex­port sec­tor has ex­pe­ri­enced sig­nif­i­cant volatil­i­ty over the past two years, with the num­ber of ex­port­ed con­tain­ers falling sub­stan­tial­ly from peak lev­els, high­light­ing on­go­ing chal­lenges fac­ing man­u­fac­tur­ers in both re­gion­al and in­ter­na­tion­al mar­kets.

Da­ta on ex­port­ed con­tain­ers mea­sured in Twen­ty-foot Equiv­a­lent Units (TEUs) showed that man­u­fac­tur­ing ex­port ac­tiv­i­ty peaked at 8,274 con­tain­ers in Q3 2024, be­fore de­clin­ing steadi­ly over the sub­se­quent quar­ters.

By Q1 2026, ex­port vol­umes had fall­en to 2,494 con­tain­ers, rep­re­sent­ing a de­cline of al­most 70 per cent from the Q3 2024 high.

The fig­ures re­vealed that man­u­fac­tur­ers ex­port­ed 6,278 con­tain­ers in Q2 2024, be­fore record­ing a sharp in­crease to 8,274 con­tain­ers in the fol­low­ing quar­ter.

How­ev­er, that mo­men­tum proved short-lived.

Ex­ports slipped to 6,105 con­tain­ers in Q4 2024, a de­cline of more than 26 per cent quar­ter-on-quar­ter.

The weak­en­ing trend con­tin­ued through­out 2025.

Ex­port­ed con­tain­er vol­umes de­clined fur­ther to 4,160 con­tain­ers in Q1 2025, re­flect­ing a year-on-year drop of 33.7 per cent when com­pared with Q2 2024 lev­els and an al­most 50 per cent re­duc­tion from the Q3 2024 peak.

Al­though ex­port ac­tiv­i­ty re­cov­ered mod­est­ly dur­ing the mid­dle of 2025, the gains were not suf­fi­cient to re­store pre­vi­ous lev­els. Con­tain­er ex­ports rose to 4,523 TEUs in Q2 2025 and then in­creased again to 4,787 TEUs in Q3 2025, rep­re­sent­ing the strongest quar­ter­ly per­for­mance since late 2024.

Ex­port ac­tiv­i­ty slipped again to 4,484 con­tain­ers in Q4 2025, be­fore plung­ing to just 2,494 con­tain­ers in Q1 2026, the low­est fig­ure record­ed in the pe­ri­od un­der re­view.