Brazil's gross domestic product (GDP) will contract 0.49 percent in 2009, said a market survey released by the country's Central Bank on Monday.

This is the seventh consecutive fall in the projections for this year's GDP growth. In a recent survey, experts had projected a 0.3 percent contraction.

The revised predications showed that Brazilian economists are becoming more and more pessimistic about the state of the country's economy, news reports said.

Last year, Brazil's GDP increased 5.1 percent despite the effects of the global financial crisis. The government has projected a 2 percent GDP growth for this year.

For 2010, the economists maintained the projection of a 3.5 percent GDP growth.

Projections for the inflation rate also recorded the seventh consecutive fall, going from 4.25 to 4.23 percent. The projection for 2010's inflation rate fell to 4.4 percent, lower than the targeted inflation rate of 4.5 percent for this year.

According to the survey, Brazil's industrial production in 2009 will suffer a 3.75 percent contraction, the ninth consecutive fall in the projection.

The economists forecast that Brazil's annual basic interest rate, which stands at 11.25 percent, will fall to 9.25 percent in 2009 but increase to 9.5 percent in 2010. The figures remained unchanged from the last survey.