Ecuador sees 2.65 percent economic growth in 2007

QUITO, Dec 22 (Reuters) - Ecuador's gross domestic product will grow 2.65 percent this year, less than previously expected due to weakness in the oil sector, the central bank said on Saturday.

However, the bank expects the oil-producing country's economy to climb 4.25 percent in 2008 thanks to a rise in private and public investment and an increase in oil exports.

Ecuador's economy grew 4 percent in 2006.

Government officials have repeatedly revised the country's economic growth forecast this year because falling state and private investment in the oil sector and violent protests in the oil-rich Amazon jungle have lowered oil output.

The bank expects the oil sector to decline 9.8 percent in 2007.

The bank's last projection for 2007 GDP growth, made in August, was 3.4 percent.

Wall Street analysts say Ecuador's economy is able to grow more than 4 percent in 2008, but it will depend largely on external factors such as the price of crude oil.

President Rafael Correa, a leftist former economy ministers, has started to draft a series of bills to boost state control over the Andean country's economy.

Correa, who has vowedto increase social spending during his four-year term, has said economic indicators can be misleading. He has said the country's non-oil economy is on the rise. (Reporting by Alonso Soto; editing by Mohammad Zargham)