DEBORAH MARCHINI, CNN ANCHOR: Now we promised you a look at the European economies. Janet Guyon joins me live, from London. And I gather things are looking a little bit weaker over in Europe these days.</s>JANET GUYON, LONDON BUREAU CHIEF, "FORTUNE": Somewhat weaker, but there are people here who seem to think that Europe is going to be the place for growth this year, although we're not talking about great growth. The European Central Bank, last week, when they left interest rates steady, continued to say that they thought that the European economy would grow overall by about three percent this year. Now, that's down from 3.4 percent last year, but that's a lot better than what people are talking about in the U.S. Now, not everybody believes that. If you talk to the people in the telecommunications, the media or the technology businesses, they are seeing some softness here in Europe, although not to the extent they are seeing in their U.S. businesses. So people have a very cautious outlook here, but so far there's not a lot of real indication -- a lot of real on-the-ground indication -- of a really severe slowdown here in Europe.</s>MARCHINI: What about layoffs? Are people being hit in the same respect as they are in the United States?</s>GUYON: Yes, that's what the funny thing is: There is a lot of disparate information out there. We are having layoffs. Some of the big American companies -- Motorola, whatnot -- are laying off people. We saw over the weekend that Intel was going to stop construction on a new plant. So yes, we are seeing some weakness, particularly in the technology corporate sector in Europe.</s>MARCHINI: All right. And of course, we don't have time to talk about it, but hoof-and-mouth disease has been a bit hit for the agricultural sector. So clearly, the story's yet to be written. Janet Guyon, "Fortune" magazine, thank you.
'Fortune': European Investors Expect Moderate Growth Over Year