Top Corporate Chiefs Foresee a Slow Recovery : Recession: Members of the Business Council are gloomier than the Administration, but they do expect a rebound near the end of this year.

Top corporate executives Friday expressed views more pessimistic than the Bush Administration about the strength and timing of a recovery from the recession.

General Electric Chairman John F. Welch Jr. said the economy remained “fragile,” and other business leaders forecast a belated, slow upturn toward the end of the year.

The statement was made to reporters as the Business Council, a private organization of 100 chief executives of major corporations, gathered at this mountain resort for its semiannual meeting.

Addressing the meeting, House Republican Whip Newt Gingrich of Georgia called on President Bush to put pressure on Congress to enact a cut in capital gains taxes that he said would stimulate investment and create half a million jobs.

“If the economy is not recovering in ‘92, any thought that George Bush is automatically reelected goes out the window and you’d have a real fight,” Gingrich said.

House Speaker Thomas S. Foley (D-Wash.), speaking for the Democrats, said his party wanted a strong economic recovery as soon as possible. “I regret any insinuation that our political fortunes are tied to anything but a robust economy,” Foley said.

While the corporate officials were more downbeat than usual, however, they anticipated an end to the recession this year.

Walter V. Shipley, chairman of Chemical Bank in New York, urged the Federal Reserve Board to take additional measures to lower interest rates as a spur to the economy. “Our own economists do not see an uptick in the economy until the fourth quarter,” he said.

Howard Allen, chairman of the executive committee of Southern California Edison Co., said he did not look for any significant upturn in California until the end of the year.

Commerce Secretary Robert A. Mosbacher, who also spoke to the council, struck a more optimistic note. “It’s a mixed bag,” Mosbacher said. “We are still in a recession, but I think we’ll be coming out of it by this summer. May is not summer.”

On the brighter side, the business leaders said the recession has forced corporations to reduce their work forces and become more efficient in ways that will make U.S. companies more competitive in the future. As a result, they said, inventories are at a historically low level and additional layoffs probably will not occur in most industries to drive up the jobless rate from its 6.6% level now.

But they still have not experienced any rebound in consumer confidence or dramatic results from the decline in short-term interest rates. “It will be a slow and painful recovery and not a snap-back at all,” said H. Brewster Atwater Jr., chairman of General Mills.

Roger B. Smith, former chairman of General Motors, said the auto industry was producing vehicles at the rate of 11 million a year, far below the 1990 level of 14.2 million.

“I don’t think we’re going to come shooting out” of the recession, Smith said. “It’s just going to take time.”