The Cen­tral Bank is reaf­firm­ing its com­mit­ment to im­prov­ing ef­fi­cien­cy and trans­paren­cy in the for­eign ex­change mar­ket, even as per­sis­tent de­mand-sup­ply im­bal­ances con­tin­ue to chal­lenge the sys­tem.

Cen­tral Bank Gov­er­nor Lar­ry Howai dis­closed that for­eign ex­change re­serves closed Oc­to­ber at US$4.62 bil­lion, on­ly mar­gin­al­ly low­er than Ju­ly’s fig­ure of US$4.65 bil­lion, de­spite con­tin­ued mar­ket sup­port av­er­ag­ing US$100 mil­lion per month.

He not­ed that bi-week­ly in­ter­ven­tions re­main a source of as­sur­ance for mar­ket par­tic­i­pants, but em­pha­sised that the bank’s fo­cus is shift­ing to­ward build­ing sus­tain­able so­lu­tions as its ca­pac­i­ty to pro­vide sup­port is grad­u­al­ly di­min­ish­ing.

In this con­text, Howai high­light­ed the role of spe­cialised fa­cil­i­ties such as the Ex­im­bank and pub­lic sec­tor mech­a­nisms in nar­row­ing gaps with­in the sys­tem, while as­sur­ing that ini­tia­tives to en­hance mar­ket trans­paren­cy through im­proved re­port­ing, mea­sures to en­cour­age repa­tri­a­tion of funds, re­views of in­ter­est rate struc­tures and ef­forts to pre­vent for­eign ex­change leak­ages are ad­vanc­ing.

Reg­u­lar en­gage­ment with au­tho­rised deal­ers and stake­hold­ers, he stressed, would re­main cen­tral to shap­ing a more re­silient and adap­tive for­eign ex­change ecosys­tem.

The Gov­er­nor made these state­ments dur­ing day two of the 16th An­nu­al In­ter­na­tion­al Fi­nance and Ac­count­ing Con­fer­ence, host­ed by the In­sti­tute of Char­tered Ac­coun­tants of T&T (ICATT) on Fri­day, where he pro­vid­ed a for­ward-look­ing per­spec­tive on glob­al and do­mes­tic trends.

Howai cau­tioned that the glob­al econ­o­my is nav­i­gat­ing a crit­i­cal tran­si­tion­al phase, with new pol­i­cy mea­sures shap­ing growth tra­jec­to­ries and geopo­lit­i­cal ten­sions adding lay­ers of un­cer­tain­ty.

While re­cent ne­go­ti­a­tions have eased some pres­sure, the on­go­ing dis­pute be­tween the Unit­ed States and Chi­na re­mains un­re­solved and is ex­pect­ed to have last­ing reper­cus­sions.

Ac­cord­ing to the In­ter­na­tion­al Mon­e­tary Fund’s Oc­to­ber 2025 World Eco­nom­ic Out­look, glob­al growth is pro­ject­ed to slow to 3.2 per cent in 2025 and 3.1 per cent in 2026, down from 3.3 per cent in 2024.

“The risks to the out­look re­main tilt­ed to the down­side,” Howai em­pha­sised, cit­ing vul­ner­a­bil­i­ties such as pro­longed pol­i­cy un­cer­tain­ty that could damp­en con­sump­tion and in­vest­ment, es­ca­la­tion of pro­tec­tion­ist mea­sures threat­en­ing in­vest­ment flows and dis­rupt­ing sup­ply chains, labour sup­ply shocks from re­stric­tive im­mi­gra­tion poli­cies that hin­der growth in age­ing economies, and fis­cal vul­ner­a­bil­i­ties in­ter­act­ing with ris­ing bor­row­ing costs to in­crease rollover risks for sov­er­eigns.

These risks, he not­ed, are par­tic­u­lar­ly rel­e­vant for T&T as the coun­try pre­pares to re­fi­nance its US$1 bil­lion bond ma­tur­ing in 2026.

Howai warned that in­creased costs could arise in the con­text of a stretched fis­cal frame­work, un­der­scor­ing the need for pru­dent debt man­age­ment amid tight­en­ing glob­al fi­nan­cial con­di­tions.

Al­though glob­al in­fla­tion is ex­pect­ed to de­cline, Howai ob­served that in­fla­tion­ary pres­sures re­main a dom­i­nant con­cern, with ad­vanced economies see­ing some eas­ing while rip­ple ef­fects con­tin­ue to in­flu­ence emerg­ing mar­kets.

The Cen­tral Bank Gov­er­nor al­so un­der­scored the crit­i­cal role of glob­al en­er­gy mar­kets in shap­ing T&T’s eco­nom­ic tra­jec­to­ry, not­ing that re­cent de­vel­op­ments in en­er­gy pol­i­cy and geopo­lit­i­cal ten­sions have cre­at­ed both chal­lenges and op­por­tu­ni­ties for the na­tion.

Cit­ing the In­ter­na­tion­al En­er­gy Agency, he not­ed that volatil­i­ty in en­er­gy prices has had a di­rect im­pact on macro­eco­nom­ic fun­da­men­tals, in­flu­enc­ing en­er­gy rev­enues, ex­port per­for­mance, and in­ter­na­tion­al re­serve in­flows.

Against this back­drop, the re­cent re­moval of an­hy­drous am­mo­nia, urea and urea-am­mo­ni­um ni­trate tar­iffs on T&T’s ex­ports by the US Gov­ern­ment was high­light­ed as a pos­i­tive de­vel­op­ment, of­fer­ing good rea­son for op­ti­mism amid glob­al un­cer­tain­ty.

Over the past five years, crude oil prices have swung dra­mat­i­cal­ly—from a low of US$39 per bar­rel in 2020 to a high of US$94 in 2022, av­er­ag­ing US$66 year-to-date.

How­ev­er, the Gov­er­nor cau­tioned that the glob­al tran­si­tion to­ward re­new­able en­er­gy sig­nals a struc­tur­al shift that can­not be ig­nored.

“Down­ward pres­sure on oil prices will per­sist if glob­al in­ven­to­ries rise,” he said, adding that short-term nat­ur­al gas prices would hinge on LNG flows to Eu­rope and US gas pro­duc­tion lev­els.

Do­mes­ti­cal­ly, en­er­gy sec­tor ac­tiv­i­ty is ex­pect­ed to sta­bilise in the short to medi­um term fol­low­ing first gas from the Cypre and Men­to fields, re­flect­ing a base ef­fect.

New fields un­der de­vel­op­ment are pro­ject­ed to add sta­bil­i­ty to oil and gas pro­duc­tion and for­eign ex­change in­flows in the com­ing years.

On the non-en­er­gy side, Howai not­ed signs of slow­ing mo­men­tum, with lead­ing in­di­ca­tors grow­ing at a much slow­er pace.

Labour mar­ket con­di­tions re­main un­der pres­sure due to re­cent pol­i­cy changes, but the Gov­ern­ment’s plan to fill long-stand­ing pub­lic ser­vice va­can­cies and tran­si­tion away from con­tract-based em­ploy­ment could sup­port job sta­bil­i­ty and bol­ster de­mand over the long run. The un­em­ploy­ment rate, Howai said cur­rent­ly around four per cent, is ex­pect­ed to re­main rel­a­tive­ly sta­ble over the next 12 months.

Howai al­so not­ed that do­mes­ti­cal­ly, in­di­ca­tors mon­i­tored by the Cen­tral Bank sug­gest that eco­nom­ic ac­tiv­i­ty in T&T re­bound­ed in the sec­ond quar­ter of 2025, stat­ing that this im­prove­ment was at­trib­ut­able to a no­table surge in en­er­gy sec­tor ac­tiv­i­ty, which coun­tered es­ti­ma­tions of re­duced ac­tiv­i­ty in the non-en­er­gy sec­tor.

“And, do­mes­tic price pres­sures re­main rel­a­tive­ly con­tained. Fi­nan­cial con­di­tions were broad­ly favourable but mar­ket liq­uid­i­ty con­tin­ued to be some­what volatile. The Gov­ern­ment’s fi­nal­i­sa­tion and im­ple­men­ta­tion of its re­new­able en­er­gy pol­i­cy and di­ver­si­fi­ca­tion strat­e­gy will be crit­i­cal for fu­ture sus­tain­abil­i­ty as glob­al­ly, en­er­gy com­mod­i­ty prices will con­tin­ue to be im­pact­ed by soft­er de­mand, ro­bust sup­ply and high in­ven­to­ry lev­els,” he added.

Link­ing these de­vel­op­ments to the con­fer­ence’s theme of In­no­va­tion, Trans­for­ma­tion and Re­silience, Howai stressed that this en­vi­ron­ment de­mands more than com­pli­ance—it calls for strate­gic in­sight.

Busi­ness­es, he said, must nav­i­gate cost pres­sures, op­ti­mise liq­uid­i­ty, and plan for long-term sus­tain­abil­i­ty, as in­no­va­tion is no longer op­tion­al but the foun­da­tion of be­ing fu­ture-ready.

Dig­i­tal ac­count­ing tools, cloud-based plat­forms, and AI-dri­ven process­es are trans­form­ing op­er­a­tions, while da­ta an­a­lyt­ics fa­cil­i­tate pre­dic­tive in­sights that en­able busi­ness­es to an­tic­i­pate risks and op­por­tu­ni­ties.

Trans­for­ma­tion, he added, is about more than tech­nol­o­gy; it is about mind­set and ca­pa­bil­i­ty, par­tic­u­lar­ly as reg­u­la­to­ry changes, sus­tain­abil­i­ty re­port­ing and cli­mate-re­lat­ed dis­clo­sures move from rec­om­men­da­tions to re­quire­ments.

Re­silience, Howai con­clud­ed, is the abil­i­ty to with­stand shocks—eco­nom­ic, en­vi­ron­men­tal, or tech­no­log­i­cal—and ad­vanc­ing on the dig­i­tal front is not with­out risks. In­creased cy­ber­se­cu­ri­ty threats re­quire ro­bust gov­er­nance struc­tures to pro­tect sen­si­tive da­ta and safe­guard busi­ness­es, while or­gan­i­sa­tion­al agili­ty is es­sen­tial to pre­pare for dis­rup­tions and main­tain con­fi­dence.

Ul­ti­mate­ly, he em­pha­sised, up­skilling and re­tool­ing the labour force would be crit­i­cal to en­sur­ing that T&T re­mains com­pet­i­tive and fu­ture-ready in an in­creas­ing­ly com­plex glob­al en­vi­ron­ment.

“As we look ahead, the ques­tion is not whether change will come, it is how pre­pared we are to em­brace it. In­no­va­tion dri­ves progress. Trans­for­ma­tion en­sures rel­e­vance. Re­silience se­cures our fu­ture. For T&T, for our busi­ness­es, and for our pro­fes­sion, these pil­lars are not ab­stract—they are ac­tion­able. Let us com­mit to be­ing fu­ture-ready, to lead­ing with in­tegri­ty, and to shap­ing a fi­nan­cial ecosys­tem that thrives amid un­cer­tain­ty,” he urged.