Ukraine's gross domestic product (GDP) will fall by 9% in 2009 with inflation being 16.4%, World Bank economist Ruslan Piontkovsky said at a press conference in Kyiv on Tuesday.

Late last December, he made a more optimistic forecast by the bank, with the GDP fall estimated at 4% and inflation at 13.6%.

As reported, the growth in Ukraine's GDP in 2008 slowed to 2.1% from 7.9% a year earlier. A decline of 8% was registered in the fourth quarter last year.

Last year's inflation slowed to 22.3% from 25.8% in 2007.

The Ukrainian government predicted GDP growth of 0.4% this year and a slowdown in inflation to 9.5%, although the overwhelming majority of economists consider this forecast to be excessively optimistic.