UNENF

Wholesale trade sales in New Zealand increased 2.2% between April and June compared to the previous three months following a similar 2.2% rise in the March quarter, Statistics New Zealand said on Tuesday.

President Obama will propose that companies be allowed to write off 100% of their new investment in plant and equipment through 2011, a plan that White House economists say would cut business taxes by nearly $200 billion over two years.

BRUSSELS (AFP) – Plans to radically re-draw cross-border economic government across Europe hit a stumbling block on Monday 10 days from a deadline for concrete action set by European Union leaders.

Obama unveiled a new $50 billion proposal to improve the nation’s highways, airports and railways – the latest attempt by the administration to jump-start the sputtering economy.

KUALA LUMPUR (AFP) – Malaysia’s once-vaunted biofuel industry has seen production grind to a halt since a March announcement that the government’s mandatory switch to the green energy will be delayed to June 2011.

MOSCOW (AFP) – The chief of a top contractor building infrastructure for the 2014 Winter Olympic Games in the Russian city of Sochi has been fired in a corruption scandal, its holding company announced Monday.

BRUSSELS (AFP) – The World Trade Organization will issue its long-awaited opinion on Europe’s challenge to American subsidies to US aerospace giant Boeing next week, a source close to the matter said Monday.

BRUSSELS (Reuters) – Plans for the giant Nabucco gas pipeline to bring Central Asian gas to Europe took a step forward on Monday, when the consortium announced the involvement of three international financial institutions.

Obama plans to use an appearance at a Labor Day rally in Milwaukee to unveil a new $50 billion proposal to improve the nation’s highways, airports and railways.

LONDON (Reuters) – Prudential’s fund management arm, M&G, is tapping into fears of resurgent inflation and appetite for bonds with an inflation-linked corporate bond fund, which it says is the first of its kind.

The euro area economy is expected to be less buoyant for the rest of the year than in the second quarter, European Central Bank President Jean-Claude Trichet told CNBC in an interview on Monday.

LONDON (AFP) – World oil prices diverged on Monday, the end of the traditional peak demand season for motor fuel in the United States.

Capital mobility brings many benefits to an economy, but this can also create instability and worsen crisis, Taiwan central bank governor Fai-nan Perng wrote in an article released by the central bank on Monday.

KABUL (AFP) – Afghanistan’s central bank said Monday it was willing to offer loans to bail out troubled Kabul Bank as nervous depositors continued taking out their savings.

Investor sentiment in the eurozone fell more than expected from its 30-month high in August, a survey by the Sentix research group showed on Monday.