Country Report Trinidad and Tobago August 2009

You may have noticed that since the second quarter of this year, some additional content has started to appear in your monthly and quarterly CRs. We are now including a country map, and a range of basic data (selected to be useful for business travellers in particular), in every country report. For most countries, except a few where data is in very short supply, we are also including comparative economic indicators that show each country's position relative to regional peers, in easy-to-read graphical format.

In addition, for 176 countries, the Country Reports will now include an annual analysis of each country's position in the Economist Intelligence Unit's Democracy Index, which ranks countries in terms of their level of democracy, based on five key categories. These analyses were published in the second quarter of this year (in the April country reports for countries covered on a monthly basis, and in the second-quarter reports for those covered on a quarterly basis). Furthermore, as a new feature for more than 150 countries, an analysis of each country's ranking in our unique Quality of Life index will be published on an annual basis starting in the fourth quarter of 2009.

Some of this content has been migrated over to the Country Reports from another product, the Country Profile, which has now been discontinued. The difficult decision to close the Country Profile reflected limited client demand for this service as well as our view that much of the content included in this report is now available for free elsewhere. We would appreciate any feedback that you have on the migration of content from the Country Profiles to the Country Reports.

• Important changes to Country Reports
• Highlights
• Outlook for 2009-10: Domestic politics
• Outlook for 2009-10: International relations
• Outlook for 2009-10: Policy trends
• Outlook for 2009-10: Fiscal policy
• Outlook for 2009-10: Monetary policy
• Outlook for 2009-10: International assumptions
• Outlook for 2009-10: Economic growth
• Outlook for 2009-10: Inflation
• Outlook for 2009-10: Exchange rates
• Outlook for 2009-10: External sector
• Outlook for 2009-10: Forecast summary
• The political scene: Local government elections postponed again
• Economic policy: Interest rates cut again in effort to boost growth
• Economic policy: New fiscal regime expected for 2010 energy bid round
• Economic performance: Sharp contraction in first-quarter economic activity
• Economic performance: Inflation falls below 10%
• Data and charts: Annual data and forecast
• Data and charts: Quarterly data
• Data and charts: Monthly data
• Data and charts: Annual trends charts
• Data and charts: Monthly trends charts
• Data and charts: Comparative economic indicators
• Basic data
• Political structure