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.

The CB's Inflation Report Thursday 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...".

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 and the "impact of recent stimulus measures to boost industrial activity and consumption", reported Xinhua.

The CB's GDP forecast is lower than the one issued by Finance Minister Guido Mantega, who pledged Wednesday to achieve growth higher than 2.5 percent.