The Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) lowered its growth and inflation forecasts on Friday, saying the 2012 economy so far has been growing modestly with activity varying significantly across industries in the country.

In its Statement on Monetary Policy released on Friday, the RBA said its forecasts for the aggregate economy had been revised marginally lower.

"GDP (gross domestic product) is expected to grow by about 3 percent over 2012 and 2013 and by a little bit more than that over the year to mid 2014," the RBA said in the statement.

The RBA's quarterly statement on monetary policy comes three days after it cut the official cash rate by 50 basis points to stimulate the economy.

"Although three months ago a range of indicators were suggesting that economic growth was close to trend, the outcome for 2011 as now reported was, in fact, somewhat weaker than that," the RBA said in the statement.

The RBA said the outlook for inflation was somewhat lower than that published in the February statement.

It said data for the March quarter showed that year-ended underlying inflation fell to around two to 2.25 percent.

"Inflation is expected to remain close to this rate over the next year before picking up a little later in the forecast period, " the RBA said.