WASHINGTON (CNN) - President Bush will promote his economic plan to some of the nation's top corporate CEOs in an afternoon meeting at the White House Thursday, White House aides said.

Fifty executives whose companies employ 2 million American workers will be in attendance, including John Dillon of International Paper (IP: Research, Estimates); Rick Wagoner of General Motors (GM: Research, Estimates); Henry McKinnell of Pfizer (PFE: Research, Estimates); Scott McNealy of Sun Microsystems (SUNW: Research, Estimates); and Sam Palmisano of IBM (IBM: Research, Estimates).

News of the meeting came after a survey said that 120 top executives expect a weaker economic performance this year than last, with many anticipating a need to reduce payrolls over the next six months, Reuters news agency reported.

The survey by the Business Roundtable, whose member firms have a combined work force of 10 million and $3.7 trillion in revenue, said U.S. executives expect gross domestic product, the broadest measure of the nation's economy, to grow just 2.2 percent this year, a bit slower than the 2.4 percent gain registered in 2002.

While 56 percent of the firms responding said they expect sales to rise in the next six months, few expect to hire new workers, the business association said.

Just 9 percent said they expect to increase payrolls in the coming six months, while 45 percent expect to let workers go.

"This survey reflects that CEOs are more concerned about the weakness in the economy than they were six months ago," John Dillon, chairman of the Business Roundtable and chairman and CEO at International Paper, said in a statement.

In a survey released in November, 71 percent of the responding firms looked forward to higher sales this year than last, even though 60 percent were anticipating lower levels of employment.