GEISHA KOW­LESSAR ALON­ZO

The Gov­ern­ment’s much-tout­ed re­vi­tal­i­sa­tion blue­print was a key fea­ture at the Am­cham T&T’s 2026 Eco­nom­ic Out­look Fo­rum, where busi­ness lead­ers ex­pressed scep­ti­cism about its fea­si­bil­i­ty and like­ly im­pact.

De­spite the plan’s promise of large scale in­fra­struc­ture up­grades, eco­nom­ic di­ver­si­fi­ca­tion and a re­newed agen­da for na­tion­al de­vel­op­ment, 61 per cent of sur­veyed ex­ec­u­tives said they are not op­ti­mistic that it would de­liv­er mean­ing­ful im­prove­ments to the econ­o­my.

Their con­cerns—rang­ing from un­clear fund­ing sources to doubts about ex­e­cu­tion ca­pa­bil­i­ty—set the tone for a fo­rum dom­i­nat­ed by the ques­tion of whether or­gan­i­sa­tions can turn to­day’s eco­nom­ic cross­winds in­to op­por­tu­ni­ties or risk be­ing over­whelmed by them.

Ex­ec­u­tives par­tic­i­pat­ing in the EY Parthenon–Am­cham T&T Pulse Sur­vey cit­ed three core rea­sons for their lack of con­fi­dence in the re­vi­tal­i­sa­tion pro­gramme.

In No­vem­ber 2025, EY Parthenon, in col­lab­o­ra­tion with Am­cham T&T, con­duct­ed a pulse sur­vey of C-suite lead­ers and ex­ec­u­tives across var­i­ous in­dus­tries in the coun­try. The sur­vey ex­am­ined how or­gan­i­sa­tions are shap­ing strat­e­gy amid un­cer­tain­ty, in­clud­ing the im­pact of eco­nom­ic, geopo­lit­i­cal, and op­er­a­tional chal­lenges, how strate­gies are be­ing reimag­ined for growth, how tal­ent strate­gies are evolv­ing and how lead­ers are build­ing con­fi­dence to in­vest.

Melanie Tom, as­so­ciate part­ner, strat­e­gy and ex­e­cu­tion at EY, who pre­sent­ed the find­ings at the fo­rum on Wednes­day, re­vealed a por­trait of an econ­o­my man­ag­ing mul­ti­ple cross­winds—rang­ing from geopo­lit­i­cal un­cer­tain­ty and fluc­tu­at­ing en­er­gy mar­kets to tal­ent short­ages and for­eign ex­change con­straints—yet al­so find­ing op­por­tu­ni­ties to re­set strat­e­gy, build re­silience and chart new paths for growth.

On the theme of con­fi­dence and growth, she ex­plained that 29 per cent of re­spon­dents ex­pect some eco­nom­ic growth in 2026, up from 21 per cent last year, but well be­low the 70 per cent av­er­age con­fi­dence seen be­tween 2022 and 2024.

Op­ti­mism is dri­ven by gov­ern­ment plans, pub­lic sec­tor sig­nals and prospects for in­creased gas sup­ply.

Those not con­fi­dent cite tighter mar­gins from high­er op­er­at­ing costs, eco­nom­ic con­straints and un­clear de­vel­op­ment plans as the main rea­sons, with geopo­lit­i­cal risks and crime al­so weigh­ing in on sen­ti­ment.

Four of the top five gov­ern­ment pri­or­i­ties re­main un­changed from 2025, though there is a no­table in­crease in ex­pec­ta­tions for gov­ern­ment in­vest­ment in pri­vate sec­tor projects to dri­ve growth.

The top three pri­or­i­ties iden­ti­fied were en­cour­ag­ing for­eign di­rect in­vest­ment through a more busi­ness friend­ly en­vi­ron­ment, dig­i­tal­is­ing gov­ern­ment ser­vices to im­prove ease of do­ing busi­ness and boost­ing man­u­fac­tur­ing and ex­port po­ten­tial.

Tom fur­ther ex­plained, “We fol­lowed up by as­sess­ing re­spon­dents’ lev­el of op­ti­mism around whether the T&T re­vi­tal­i­sa­tion blue­print will de­liv­er mean­ing­ful im­prove­ments to the econ­o­my. Six­ty-one per cent of re­spon­dents are not op­ti­mistic that the blue­print will de­liv­er mean­ing­ful im­pact. The pri­ma­ry dri­vers of scep­ti­cism are lack of clar­i­ty on fund­ing sources and fi­nan­cial fea­si­bil­i­ty, 79 per cent; lim­it­ed con­fi­dence in gov­ern­ment ex­e­cu­tion and de­liv­ery, 76 per cent; and con­cerns around re­al­ism of the eco­nom­ic pro­jec­tions un­der­pin­ning the blue­print, 68 per cent.

“Con­verse­ly, 39 per cent of re­spon­dents ex­pressed op­ti­mism about the re­vi­tal­i­sa­tion plan, cit­ing three key fac­tors; 78 per cent be­lieve it has the po­ten­tial to stim­u­late eco­nom­ic di­ver­si­fi­ca­tion and at­tract new in­vest­ment, 52 per cent see the blue­print as pro­vid­ing a clear long-term vi­sion for na­tion­al de­vel­op­ment, and 48 per cent be­lieve it ad­dress­es crit­i­cal pri­or­i­ties such as com­pet­i­tive­ness, in­no­va­tion, and job cre­ation.”

For­eign ex­change

Forex con­straints con­tin­ue to per­sist, shap­ing dai­ly op­er­a­tions, in­vest­ment plan­ning, and growth de­ci­sions, par­tic­u­lar­ly for im­port-de­pen­dent and in­ter­na­tion­al­ly con­nect­ed busi­ness­es. Ap­prox­i­mate­ly 70 per cent of re­spon­dents in­di­cat­ed a heavy re­liance on for­eign ex­change for their op­er­a­tions, up from 63 per cent in the pre­vi­ous year, Tom out­lined.

In terms of ac­cess to for­eign ex­change, sen­ti­ment re­mains chal­leng­ing. The sur­vey al­so found that 45 per cent of re­spon­dents re­port­ed no im­prove­ment in for­eign ex­change ac­ces­si­bil­i­ty over the past 12 months, while an­oth­er 45 per cent in­di­cat­ed that ob­tain­ing for­eign ex­change has be­come more dif­fi­cult.

On­ly 10 per cent ex­pe­ri­enced any im­prove­ment.

When sourc­ing for­eign ex­change, 50 per cent of re­spon­dents re­ly pri­mar­i­ly on the tra­di­tion­al lo­cal bank­ing sec­tor, 28 per cent on ex­port rev­enues from in­ter­na­tion­al trade, and eight per cent on for­eign ex­change fa­cil­i­ties pro­vid­ed by gov­ern­ment en­ti­ties.

Oth­er mech­a­nisms cit­ed in­clud­ed cur­ren­cy swaps, grant fund­ing, and US-de­nom­i­nat­ed loans, re­flect­ing the need for more di­ver­si­fied for­eign ex­change strate­gies.

With re­spect to cap­i­tal in­vest­ment de­ci­sions, 44 per cent of re­spon­dents in­di­cat­ed that their or­gan­i­sa­tions have re­de­ployed cap­i­tal in­to sig­nif­i­cant in­vest­ments, hold­ings, or busi­ness­es out­side of T&T, com­pared with just 21 per cent last year.

The re­main­ing 56 per cent have not, sug­gest­ing a bal­anced but cau­tious ap­proach to off­shore di­ver­si­fi­ca­tion.

Look­ing ahead to the next 12 months, the sur­vey in­di­cat­ed cap­i­tal in­vest­ment pri­or­i­ties show a no­tice­able shift as 40 per cent iden­ti­fied the wider Caribbean as a pri­or­i­ty down from 50 per cent last year; 36 per cent plan to pri­ori­tise in­vest­ment in T&T a sig­nif­i­cant de­cline from 60 per cent last year and 10 per cent cit­ed Latin Amer­i­ca.

Geopo­lit­i­cal de­vel­op­ments

Lo­cal ex­ec­u­tives are sig­nalling that geopo­lit­i­cal in­sta­bil­i­ty is am­pli­fy­ing long-stand­ing busi­ness chal­lenges, even as many or­gan­i­sa­tions move ahead with am­bi­tious in­vest­ment plans for 2026.

“Geopo­lit­i­cal risk is no longer ab­stract. It di­rect­ly af­fects costs, sup­ply chains, pay­ments and in­vest­ment de­ci­sions. For economies like ours, dis­rup­tion quick­ly trans­lates in­to for­eign ex­change pres­sure and un­cer­tain­ty. Man­ag­ing geopo­lit­i­cal risk is there­fore no longer about con­tin­gency plan­ning. It is a core strate­gic ca­pa­bil­i­ty,” Tom out­lined.

The sur­vey not­ed that 61 per cent of re­spon­dents re­port­ed dif­fi­cul­ty ac­cess­ing for­eign ex­change or mak­ing cross-bor­der pay­ments, un­der­scor­ing how geopo­lit­i­cal dis­rup­tions are tight­en­ing al­ready con­strained for­eign ex­change mar­kets.

Mean­while, 48 per cent ex­pe­ri­enced high­er in­put or op­er­at­ing costs, 35 per cent faced sup­ply chain de­lays or dis­rup­tions and 35 per cent in­di­cat­ed that un­cer­tain­ty is de­lay­ing in­vest­ment de­ci­sions, af­fect­ing growth mo­men­tum and long-term plan­ning.

De­spite these head­winds, busi­ness con­fi­dence is prov­ing sur­pris­ing­ly re­silient as

Fifty-sev­en per cent of glob­al CEOs ex­pect el­e­vat­ed geopo­lit­i­cal and eco­nom­ic un­cer­tain­ty to con­tin­ue be­yond this year, a view shared even more strong­ly by 66 per cent of lo­cal Csuite lead­ers.

Yet in­stead of re­treat­ing, many or­gan­i­sa­tions are gear­ing up for ex­pan­sion.

In fact, 75 per cent of re­spon­dents said their or­gan­i­sa­tions plan to in­vest or ex­pand in 2026, sug­gest­ing that lead­ers are in­creas­ing­ly adopt­ing strate­gies de­signed to op­er­ate through un­cer­tain­ty rather than wait for sta­bil­i­ty to re­turn.

Ex­ec­u­tives point to di­ver­si­fi­ca­tion, in­no­va­tion and mar­ket ex­pan­sion as key pil­lars of their for­ward-look­ing plans.

Emerg­ing tech­nolo­gies

Tom not­ed that emerg­ing tech­nolo­gies, par­tic­u­lar­ly gen­er­a­tive AI, are no longer fu­ture con­sid­er­a­tions, stat­ing that they are al­ready re­shap­ing how or­gan­i­sa­tions op­er­ate, com­pete and man­age risk.

“The chal­lenge for lead­ers to­day is not whether to adopt new tech­nolo­gies, but how quick­ly and ef­fec­tive­ly they can do so while man­ag­ing cy­ber­se­cu­ri­ty, gov­er­nance and or­gan­i­sa­tion­al readi­ness. AI is ad­vanc­ing at an un­prece­dent­ed speed, mov­ing rapid­ly from ex­per­i­men­ta­tion to re­al-world ap­pli­ca­tion. The shift is ev­i­dent lo­cal­ly,” she added.

When asked about plans to strength­en cy­ber­se­cu­ri­ty over the next 12 months, 44 per cent of re­spon­dents plan to strength­en cy­ber re­silience and re­cov­ery, with 37 per cent fo­cussing on cloud se­cu­ri­ty and 32 per cent on role-based cy­ber aware­ness train­ing.

While the op­por­tu­ni­ty from emerg­ing tech­nolo­gies is clear, adop­tion is not with­out its chal­lenges as 65 per cent of re­spon­dents face con­straints in im­ple­ment­ing emerg­ing tech­nolo­gies.

The top bar­ri­ers cit­ed were lack of liq­uid­i­ty, lim­it­ed dig­i­tal skills or tech readi­ness among staff, and un­cer­tain­ty around which tech­nol­o­gy ini­tia­tives to pri­ori­tise.

BOX

ABOUT THE SUR­VEY

This sur­vey was con­duct­ed to gath­er per­spec­tives on how com­pa­nies are dri­ving their strat­e­gy and growth in the cur­rent busi­ness land­scape.

Themes fo­cused on con­fi­dence and growth, tal­ent strat­e­gy, cor­po­rate strat­e­gy,

emerg­ing tech­nolo­gies and oth­er busi­ness con­sid­er­a­tions.

Re­spon­dents in­clud­ed C-Suite ex­ec­u­tives, busi­ness unit heads and di­rec­tors from sev­er­al busi­ness­es across var­i­ous in­dus­tries T&T.