News

A cruise ship may soon call at Port-Au-Prince, the first such visit in Haiti after a quarter of a century, a milestone that Minister of the Interior Thierry Mayard-Paul welcomed Friday at a gathering in Tuscaloosa, Alabama with the organizers of the cruise that combines tourism with volunteer work, seeing this as another instance of sustainable development for the Caribbean nation’s economy, “breathing new life” into the tourism sector.

“Haiti is at a turning point as a nation,” Mr. Mayard-Paul said at ...

A couple of rumpled aid workers were sucking down a Sunday morning beer at the Hotel Florita here when the minister of tourism rolled to the curb, followed by the interior minister with body guards toting AR-15s, and then the star of the show, New York fashion designer Donna Karan of DKNY.

The notables were in Jacmel, the funky art and carnival capital of Haiti, to plot the transformation of the earthquake-rattled port from the faded flower of the Caribbean to ...

The Kansas City Board of Trade (KCBT) said on Jan. 3 that it set new annual volume records in 2011 for hard red winter (HRW) wheat futures and for the exchange as a whole.

A total of 6,582,673 contracts were traded at the KCBT in 2011, setting a new record with a 15.5% increase over the 5,697,874 contracts traded in 2010.

In the HRW wheat futures contract, a total of 6,342,782 contracts were traded, which also set a ...

Caribbean Airlines Ltd (CAL) is working towards self-sufficiency without a fuel subsidy by the end of next year.

With new projects on stream including new routes and the introduction of a “Jet-Pack” courier service, CAL chairman George Nicholas said the drive toward more profitability will continue into the next fiscal year.

Nicholas was speaking at the launch of its direct flights between Barbados and Guyana and the introduction of a St Lucia service at the company’s head office in Piarco yesterday.

Nicholas, who ...

The Trinidad and Tobago’s Manufacturer’s Association (TTMA) is viewing the current impasse between the Government and labour that led to the shutdown of the port operations as an issue which requires immediate and urgent resolve. Around 1,000 workers stayed away from work for three and a half days to protest the Port Authority’s failure to meet and discuss a new collective agreement. In a release to the media yesterday the TTMA said the Supermarkets Association of Trinidad and Tobago, the ...

CHINA Harbour Engineering Company (CHEC) has bagged its fourth major project in the region since it set up shop in Jamaica last year, with the signing of an agreement to expand the Cheddi Jagan International Airport in Guyana last Friday.

The construction company said that, as with the infrastructural projects that it is undertaking in Jamaica, the China Exim Bank will fund the construction of a modern terminal building and the extension of the runway by 1,066 metres to ...

Over the next three years, Jamaica will plant eight thousand acres of rice, the biggest step taken by the industry since Government embarked on a programme to revive its production.

Minister of Agriculture and Fisheries, Robert Montague said that the Rice Growers Association (RGA) has informed him that 250 acres will be planted by the end of November and will be ready for harvesting by March.

The rate of inflation in Trinidad and Tobago has started climbing again.

Headline inflation rose in the month of September, after having slowed to a historic low of 0.6 per cent in August.

Headline inflation, measured by the 12-month increase in the Index of Retail Prices, rose to 2.5 per cent in September.

This has been attributed to increased food prices.

The Central Bank said in a statement yesterday that based on figures from the Central Statistical Office (CSO), food inflation rose by 4.3 ...

European milling wheat futures were firm on
Thursday, mainly driven by short covering on the front month contract which
expires next week, and supported by strong equity markets.
* Traders short of 100 lots on the November contract need to provide a
storage certificate by Friday, which attracted heavy buying on the contract and
lead its premium over the following contracts January and March
to extend their rise to 7.00 euros and 9.00 euros respectively.
* “It’s even tighter now ...

Minister Andrew Holness is keeping Jamaicans guessing a bit longer about the composition of the new Cabinet as he yesterday named only two of the slate of ministers who will be included in his administration.

The first two members of the executive retained were Finance Minister Audley Shaw and Security Minister Senator Dwight Nelson. Both were appointed and sworn in at King’s House in St Andrew as one of the first orders of business for the new prime minister ...