Uzbekistan presented several new proposals to the countries of the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU) concerning digitalization, energy, employment, and tourism, and also initiated the preparation of a joint industrial cooperation program.
Uzbekistan presented several new proposals to the countries of the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU) concerning digitalization, energy, employment, and tourism, and also initiated the preparation of a joint industrial cooperation program.
These initiatives were voiced by Prime Minister Abdullah Aripov during the meeting of the Eurasian Intergovernmental Council, which took place in Cholpon-Ata, Kyrgyzstan, on August 6–7. Uzbekistan participated in this event as an observer state. During the meeting, Aripov also took part in the meeting between the President of Kyrgyzstan, Sadyr Japarov, and the heads of government of the union member states.
The head of the Government of Uzbekistan proposed creating a general program of industrial interaction. He noted that agreements reached at the 'Innoprom. Central Asia' exhibition, held in Tashkent in the spring, could form the basis for this program. This program is planned to include specific production sites, partner companies, financing mechanisms, and joint projects.
In addition, Uzbekistan put forward the idea of forming a unified digital space to facilitate trade operations between EAEU states. It is planned to ensure mutual recognition of electronic documents and set up information exchange between regulatory bodies.
Aripov paid significant attention to the topic of environmental modernization of industry. He called on the union countries to jointly develop a portfolio of projects aimed at increasing energy efficiency, implementing technologies that comply with environmental standards, and using artificial intelligence solutions to monitor energy consumption.
Another important initiative was the proposal to integrate Uzbekistan's national employment system with the general EAEU system. This is expected to simplify the process of labor migration for citizens. The Uzbek side is ready to conduct consultations with the Eurasian Economic Commission to start this project.
Tashkent also proposed strengthening interaction in the field of tourism through the concept of the 'Central Asia Tourism Belt'. This initiative involves creating a unified calendar of events and cross-border tourist routes.
The Prime Minister emphasized that all the presented proposals are designed to promote practical cooperation between Uzbekistan and the EAEU states, continuing the course set previously by President Shavkat Mirziyoyev. During the meeting with Sadyr Japarov, the heads of government also discussed issues of agricultural and industrial complex development, as well as the access of union countries to financial support mechanisms.
Sadyr Japarov additionally announced that the next Eurasian Economic Forum will take place in Kyrgyzstan in 2027 and suggested inviting partner states and international organizations to it. It should be noted that the current volume of joint projects between Uzbekistan and EAEU states is estimated at over 50 billion dollars.
Godrej Consumer Products forecasts sustained demand stability but notes that El Niño could create certain difficulties by affecting the income of the agricultural sector and farmers. Asif Malbari, CFO of Godrej Consumer Products, told Business Standard that despite potential issues, he hopes that increased government spending will be able to offset these negative factors.
He also added that the company might lose some of the foreign exchange earnings observed in the quarter from April to June. Nevertheless, the large Fast-Moving Consumer Goods (FMCG) manufacturer expects to maintain volume growth in the high single digits and revenue growth in the range of ten percent.
Regarding price increases, Malbari noted that a significant portion has already been passed on to consumers, and he does not anticipate substantial changes in pricing as long as raw material prices remain at their current level.
For the markets in Africa, the Middle East, and the US (GUAM), the company states that it is actively developing new product categories. According to management, this represents a major opportunity over many decades, and the business is expected to show strong results in the future.
In the Indian market, the company is also expanding its fast-moving categories, and the significance of these categories has risen from 15 percent last year to 17 percent. Malbari emphasized that this figure will continue to grow steadily as Godrej Consumer Products adds more products to new segments.
During the quarter from July to September, the company plans to enter the dishwashing liquid market under the brand Godrej Rizz and launch it in select regions.
In the quarter from April to June, the company's consolidated net profit increased by 11.5 percent, reaching 504.5 crore rupees. The soap manufacturer Cinthol demonstrated a volume growth of 9 percent during this period, while revenue grew by 18.3 percent, amounting to 4,225.5 crore rupees.
Nintendo has announced that the Nintendo Switch 2 will have a suggested retail price of R$ 4,599.90 in the Brazilian market starting on September 1, 2026. This adjustment corresponds to a 2.2% increase compared to the initial launch price of R$ 4,499.90 in June 2025.
The Japanese company continues to sell the previous Switch model, whose price will remain unchanged in Brazilian territory.
The decision to raise costs for the Brazilian market occurred just over a month after a similar move in the United States. In the US, the increase was more pronounced, jumping from US$ 449 to US$ 499, representing an 11% growth.
In a press release, Nintendo justified the increase as a 'response to various changes in market conditions, which are expected to persist in the medium and long term,' although it did not detail the meaning of this statement.
It can be inferred that this readjustment is linked to the RAM and SSD memory supply crisis. The intense production of data centers intended for artificial intelligence has put pressure on suppliers, reducing the availability of these components for the market and drastically raising the prices of various electronics.
In the video game segment, Nintendo is not the only one making such adjustments. In March 2026, Sony raised the price of the PlayStation 5, which went from R$ 4,499 to R$ 5,099. Internationally, Microsoft implemented increases of up to US$ 150 on the Xbox line and also discontinued the sale of the 2TB model.
Other sectors have also seen price increases for their products since last year, including companies such as Apple, Dell, Lenovo, Roku, and Raspberry Pi.
The applied artificial intelligence startup Wonderful announced on Friday the commencement of its operations in India as part of its global expansion. The company also appointed Bhavik Ratod as Managing Director (MD) for the Indian market.
Ratod previously collaborated with companies such as Uber, Scaler, and Scale AI, and was one of the founders of Uber India. This one-year-old startup was founded in Israel and is headquartered in Amsterdam. In March of this year, it raised $150 million and is valued at $2 billion.
Wonderful intends to establish its own service center in India and hire no less than 1000 engineers who will work directly with clients (FDEs). Wonderful is an applied AI platform positioned as a model-agnostic orchestration layer, open and functioning atop advanced models such as Anthropic and OpenAI.
Roy Lalazar, Co-founder and CTO, stated at a press briefing in Mumbai on Friday that the company's operating system (OS) is built upon these models. He specified that this includes creating agents, launching them, measuring performance, optimization, data exchange between various communities, agents, and workflows, as well as democratizing AI within enterprises through workspaces, permissions, governance, monitoring, dashboards, and productivity tools.
Responding to questions about plans in India, Lalazar emphasized that the primary objective is to build a significant presence in the country, where many FDEs will serve clients. He added that since India has an exceptional pool of technical specialists, the company is exploring opportunities to bring some of this talent into its global research efforts, although these plans are still being finalized.
When asked about competition with global system integrators like Accenture and Indian IT service players who are also vying for application modernization and transformation deals, Lalazar noted that Wonderful has worked with several system integrators. Nevertheless, he stated that Wonderful's success in applying AI within the enterprise ecosystem is significantly higher.
He informed Business Standard that, in his observation, many system integrators attempt to conduct AI transformations using platforms like Foundry or Bedrock. While individual use cases sometimes succeed, large-scale transformation is not achieved consistently in this manner.
Lalazar asserted that Wonderful has been able to rapidly deploy solutions for large enterprises into production environments, create measurable value, win larger contracts, attract additional capital, and continue international expansion. Currently, Wonderful operates in markets across more than 35 countries worldwide, but the company does not disclose the number of enterprises it collaborates with.
He added that according to industry statistics, nearly 87% of AI pilot projects fail, whereas for Wonderful, the probability that a client reaching the pilot stage becomes a paying production client approaches 100 percent.
Bhavik Ratod stated that the main focus will be on penetrating the corporate ecosystem, and preliminary discussions have been promising. He views India as a long-term growth market and reaffirms commitment to building deep local partnerships that help organizations move from isolated AI initiatives to enterprise-wide transformation while strengthening their internal capabilities over time. Ratod stressed that building a strong local team is central to this commitment.
