BRASILIA, March 16 (Reuters) - Economists raised their forecasts for Brazil's inflation rate in 2015 and 2016, in a sign the central bank will need to raise interest rates further to soothe market expectations, a weekly central bank poll showed on Monday.
Brazil's inflation rate is expected to end 2015 close to 8 percent, easing to 5.6 percent next year, the poll showed. The central bank's target is 4.5 percent.
(pct) 2015 2016 previous new previous new forecast forecast forecast forecast Consumer inflation 7.77 7.93 5.51 5.60 Exchange rate 2.95 3.06 3.00 3.11 (reais per U.S dollar, end-period) Interest rate 13.00 13.00 11.50 11.50 (end-period) GDP growth -0.66 -0.78 1.40 1.30 Industrial output -1.38 -2.19 2.40 1.68 (Reporting by Silvio Cascione; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama)