Brazil's Central Bank (CB) continued its downward adjustment of projected growth, lowering its forecast for 2012 Gross Domestic Product (GDP) expansion from 3.5 percent to 2.5 percent, according to an Inflation Report published Thursday.
The CB's report said "the new forecast incorporates the results of 2012's first quarter, as well as preliminary data on the second quarter, a period in which activity has been fairly slow, and the updated macroeconomic outlook for the second half of the year."
The economy will tend to speed up in the second half of the year, said the CB, helped by the out-of-step and cumulative effects of monetary policy -- cuts in the basic Selic interest rate that began in August 2011 -- and the "impact of recent stimulus measures to boost industrial activity and consumption."
The CB's GDP forecast is lower than the one issued by Finance Minister Guido Mantega, who pledged on Wednesday to achieve growth higher than 2.5 percent.
Meanwhile, the financial market estimates growth of 2.18 percent in 2012, according to a poll published on Monday.