Inflation in PoS doubled in January

Port-of-Spain has record­ed the most sig­nif­i­cant in­crease in in­fla­tion in Trinidad at the start of 2026, with its rate dou­bling from 0.6 per cent in De­cem­ber 2025 to 1.2 per cent in Jan­u­ary 2026.

This was de­tailed in the Cen­tral Bank’s In­fla­tion Re­port (Jan­u­ary 2026) which was ob­tained by the Busi­ness Guardian.

Cen­tral Bank Gov­er­nor Lar­ry Howai stat­ed the bank is still in­ves­ti­gat­ing the spe­cif­ic caus­es, stat­ing, “That we are try­ing to fig­ure out our­selves.”

The source of the da­ta for the pro­duc­tion of the re­port is the Cen­tral Sta­tis­ti­cal Of­fice (CSO).

This 100 per cent month-over-month ac­cel­er­a­tion how­ev­er, could per­haps iden­ti­fy the cap­i­tal as the pri­ma­ry dri­ver of price growth in the coun­try, sig­nalling a sharp rise in the cost of ur­ban ser­vices and re­tail op­er­a­tions.

Port-of-Spain is not the on­ly area ex­pe­ri­enc­ing up­ward pres­sure; across the wa­ters, the sis­ter isle is see­ing even sharp­er spikes.

Be­yond the cap­i­tal, To­ba­go con­tin­ues to func­tion as the high­est in­fla­tion­ary out­lier in the Re­pub­lic.

Head­line in­fla­tion on the sis­ter isle climbed to 2.9 per cent in Jan­u­ary 2026, up from 2.3 per cent in the pre­vi­ous month.

This surge was pri­mar­i­ly fu­elled by core in­fla­tion, which ex­cludes in­creas­es in the price of food, rose to 3.1 per cent from 2.2 per cent in De­cem­ber.

This per­sis­tent in­crease in the cost of non-volatile goods and ser­vices oc­curred even as food in­fla­tion in To­ba­go de­cel­er­at­ed sig­nif­i­cant­ly, drop­ping from 3.1 per cent to 1.4 per cent, the re­port showed.

While the is­lands’ ma­jor hubs show growth, the trend in Trinidad’s re­gion­al mu­nic­i­pal­i­ties is far more var­ied, with some ar­eas find­ing re­lief.

In the re­gion­al mu­nic­i­pal­i­ties of Trinidad, the da­ta re­flects a sta­bil­i­sa­tion of pre­vi­ous price pres­sures through no­table de­clines.

Ari­ma, which record­ed a high of 1.6 per cent in De­cem­ber 2025, saw its in­fla­tion rate fall by 0.9 per­cent­age points to 0.7 per cent in Jan­u­ary 2026.

San Juan ex­pe­ri­enced a 0.3 per­cent­age point de­crease, mov­ing from 1.6 per cent to 1.3 per cent, while Rio Claro re­port­ed a 0.6 per­cent­age point de­cline from 2.0 per cent to 1.4 per cent.

How­ev­er, this cool­ing trend was not uni­ver­sal, as oth­er re­gions be­gan to align with the cap­i­tal’s ris­ing costs.

Con­verse­ly, San­gre Grande and Debe mir­rored the cap­i­tal’s up­ward move­ment; San­gre Grande rose by 0.8 per­cent­age points from 0.5 per cent to 1.3 per cent, and Debe in­creased by 0.6 per­cent­age points from 0.8 per cent to 1.4 per cent.

The re­port fur­ther in­di­cat­ed that a sig­nif­i­cant por­tion of the coun­try re­mains in a de­fla­tion­ary cy­cle, con­trast­ing the growth seen in Port-of-Spain and To­ba­go.

Ch­agua­nas record­ed a neg­a­tive in­fla­tion rate of -0.9 per cent, a slight move­ment from the -1.1 per cent seen in De­cem­ber.

Princes Town record­ed -1.1 per cent, up from -1.4 per cent the pre­vi­ous month.

Siparia showed the most ag­gres­sive down­ward pres­sure, with de­fla­tion deep­en­ing from -1.0 per cent to -1.3 per cent in Jan­u­ary 2026.

Mean­while, the re­port showed na­tion­al head­line in­fla­tion edged up to 0.7 per cent (year-on-year) in Jan­u­ary 2026 from 0.4 per cent in De­cem­ber 2025.

This was at­trib­uted to an in­crease in core in­fla­tion to 0.8 per cent in Jan­u­ary 2026 from 0.5 per cent in De­cem­ber 2025.

This do­mes­tic uptick is be­ing watched close­ly by the Cen­tral Bank, es­pe­cial­ly as in­ter­na­tion­al ten­sions threat­en to spill over in­to the lo­cal econ­o­my.

Howai con­firmed that the bank is close­ly mon­i­tor­ing geopo­lit­i­cal de­vel­op­ments in Iran due to their po­ten­tial im­pact on the na­tion­al econ­o­my.

“It is some­thing that we are al­so look­ing at very close­ly be­cause with what is hap­pen­ing in Iran and the lo­gis­ti­cal is­sues that could arise from there we see the po­ten­tial for some up­ward move­ment. It’s un­der con­trol at the mo­ment,” he ex­plained.

While glob­al lo­gis­tics pose a fu­ture threat, cur­rent da­ta shows that food costs are cur­rent­ly pro­vid­ing a buffer for con­sumers.

Food in­fla­tion slowed to 0.1 per cent (year-on-year) in Jan­u­ary 2026.

The re­port fur­ther in­di­cat­ed that core in­fla­tion ac­cel­er­at­ed to 0.8 (year-on-year) in Jan­u­ary 2026.

The ac­cel­er­a­tion in core in­fla­tion was dri­ven large­ly by spe­cif­ic con­sumer sec­tors, most no­tably those im­pact­ed by re­cent fis­cal pol­i­cy.

A faster price in­crease was record­ed in the al­co­holic bev­er­ages and to­bac­co cat­e­go­ry (24.4 per cent in Jan­u­ary 2026 com­pared to 23.6 per cent in De­cem­ber 2025) due to high­er prices for brandy, vod­ka, shandy and lo­cal rum. The in­crease in prices was pri­mar­i­ly dri­ven by high­er ex­cise and cus­tom du­ties for al­co­holic bev­er­ages and to­bac­co as an­nounced in the FY2026 na­tion­al bud­get.

Be­yond “sin tax­es,” the cost of main­tain­ing per­son­al health and well­ness al­so con­tributed to the ris­ing in­dex.

High­er prices for pain re­liev­ers, ton­ics, vi­t­a­mins and min­er­al sup­ple­ments and spec­ta­cles were re­spon­si­ble for the stronger price in­crease for the health sub-in­dex (1.5 per cent in Jan­u­ary 2026 com­pared to 1.2 per cent in De­cem­ber 2025).

The leisure sec­tor saw an even more dra­mat­ic swing, fu­eled by the sea­son­al de­mand of the na­tion­al fes­ti­val.

A price in­crease was record­ed for the recre­ation and cul­ture sub-in­dex (4.0 per cent in Jan­u­ary 2026 com­pared to -0.8 per cent in De­cem­ber 2025) due to high­er prices for pre-record­ed so­ca and ca­lyp­so mu­sic, pack­age tours and for­eign va­ca­tions, cin­e­ma, Car­ni­val shows and fetes.

De­spite these spikes, some es­sen­tial ser­vices re­mained fixed, while oth­ers ac­tu­al­ly pro­vid­ed cost sav­ings.

A few sub-in­dices re­mained steady (hous­ing, wa­ter, elec­tric­i­ty, gas and oth­er fu­els, ed­u­ca­tion and ho­tels, cafes and restau­rants).

Price de­clines were record­ed in sev­er­al cat­e­gories (cloth­ing and footwear, fur­nish­ings, house­hold equip­ment and rou­tine main­te­nance, trans­port and com­mu­ni­ca­tion).

Nev­er­the­less, these scat­tered de­clines of­fer lit­tle com­fort to the Cen­tral Bank if the broad­er trend of glob­al in­sta­bil­i­ty con­tin­ues.

The Cen­tral Bank Gov­er­nor added that if the per­sis­tent volatil­i­ty re­mains un­changed, mean­ing be­yond do­mes­tic con­trol, this is wor­ry­ing.

“That is a con­cern we have and that is some­thing we are go­ing to move very ear­ly on to try to ad­dress as far as pos­si­ble. We may have to tight­en up de­mand a lit­tle bit. But it is some­thing that we need to work on im­me­di­ate­ly,” he cau­tioned.