RIO DE JANEIRO, July 9 (Xinhua) -- Brazil's financial market again downgraded its economic growth forecast for the year, this time to 1.53 percent, practically half its original estimate in January of 3 percent, the Central Bank of Brazil said on Monday.
The bank's weekly Focus poll of about 100 economists and financial analysts resulted in another downgrade after last week's forecast remained steady at 1.55 percent, marking an end to eight downgrades in a row.
Latin America's largest economy has been recovering slower than expected following two years of negative growth in 2015 and 2016, and modest one-percent growth in 2017.
For 2019, the Focus poll forecast remained the same as last week's projected 2.5 percent growth.
The benchmark interest rate, currently at its lowest level ever at 6.5 percent annually, is expected to hold steady for the year, but go up to 8 percent in 2019, analysts said.
Brazil's trade balance will see a surplus of 57.81 billion U.S. dollars, slightly lower than the 58.28 billion U.S. dollars analysts forecast last week.
Next year's surplus was also lowered from 49.7 billion U.S. dollars to 49.5 billion U.S. dollars.
