Fi­nance Min­is­ter Dav­en­dranath Tan­coo says he can­not yet es­ti­mate the eco­nom­ic im­pact of Car­ni­val 2026 but main­tains that this year’s cel­e­bra­tions al­ready rep­re­sent an im­prove­ment on 2025, cit­ing ex­pand­ed com­mu­ni­ty events and in­creased ac­tiv­i­ty at key venues.

Speak­ing to Guardian Me­dia at Car­ni­val City in Fyz­abad yes­ter­day, Tan­coo said that while fi­nan­cial fig­ures were not yet avail­able, the Gov­ern­ment’s ap­proach to Car­ni­val fo­cused on strength­en­ing cul­ture and par­tic­i­pa­tion rather than mea­sur­ing suc­cess sole­ly in rev­enue terms.

He said the im­pact of Car­ni­val could not be cap­tured on­ly through eco­nom­ic in­di­ca­tors, as the fes­ti­val re­flect­ed every as­pect of Trinidad and To­ba­go life and brought to­geth­er cor­po­rate in­ter­ests, com­mu­ni­ties and cit­i­zens in­to a sin­gle na­tion­al prod­uct.