Business week in pictures

Network Rail will electrify nearly 300 miles of Britain's busiest railway track over the next decade after the government gave its approval to a £1.1bn programme. The plans will transform the Great Western mainline, which runs from London to Oxford, Newbury and Cardiff, via Reading Photograph: Martin Godwin/Guardian

Prime minister Gordon Brown visits the Nissan works in Sunderland. The carmaker has pledged to invest more than £200m in a new rechargeable battery factory, boosting the north-east of England's drive to become a leading centre for green technology Photograph: John Giles/AFP/Getty Images

Porsche's chief executive has quit with a €50m payoff as the debt-laden luxury car firm prepares to join forces with Volkswagen. Wendelin Wiedeking and the chief financial officer, Holger Härter, were forced out of Porsche after their gamble to seize control of VW backfired Photograph: Johannes Eisele/Reuters

Britain's leading employers' organisation warned that nearly a quarter of a million jobs will be cut in manufacturing this year as the sector faces a long, hard slog out of the steepest recession since the second world war. In its quarterly industrial trends survey, the Confederation of British Industry (CBI) said that factory orders in July fell to their lowest level since January 1992 Photograph: Oli Scarff/Getty

The UK economy will not fully recover from the recession until 2014, according to a leading thinktank which also warned that house prices will keep falling for another three years. The National Institute of Economic and Social Research (NIESR) predicted that it will take another five years until income per head has returned to the level seen before the recession started in the second quarter of 2008 Photograph: Linda Nylind

The Bank of England adopted a wait-and-see approach to the need for a fresh boost to Britain's recession-mired economy. All nine members MPC members voted to keep rates at a record low of 0.5% and to maintain its purchase of assets at £125bn. The committee wanted to wait until it had completed its quarterly health check of the economy next month before deciding whether to expand quantitative easing. Official figures on Friday showed the UK economy contracted 0.8% in the second quarter, much worse than expected Photograph: Linda Nylind

Financial firms which repeatedly breach rules protecting customer details from being lost or stolen were warned by the City regulator that they would face ever larger penalties after HSBC was fined £3m. The Financial Services Authority levied the fine on Britain's largest bank after unencrypted customer details were sent through the post or left lying on shelves and not in locked cabinets. It is the largest fine levied by the regulator for such an offence Photograph: Sang Tan/AP

Recession-hit coffee chain Starbucks has slowed the rate of decline in its sales and is forecasting that profits will bounce sharply next year as customers regain their thirst for lattes, cappuccinos and Frappuccinos. After shutting 765 stores and cutting thousands of jobs, Starbucks returned to the black for the three months to June with a profit of $151m (£91.7m), compared to a $6.7m loss a year ago Photograph: Christopher Furlong/Getty

New Fairtrade Cadbury Dairy Milk bars roll off the production line for the first time at the Bournville factory, Birmingham. Cadbury has undergone one of the biggest changes in its nearly 200-year history of chocolate-making. Good news: eating bars of Dairy Milk is no longer greedy — it's snacking with a social conscience Photograph: Rui Vieira/PA