(Adds economic growth polling data and inflation context) BUENOS AIRES, Aug 6 (Reuters) - Argentina’s economy is expected to grow 7% this year and 4.5% in 2022, President Alberto Fernandez said on Friday, forecasting a rebound after three years of recession exacerbated in 2020 by the COVID-19 pandemic. The center-left leader’s forecast was more optimistic than the market’s current expectation. Independent analysts see Argentina’s economy expanding 6.3% this year, according to the latest poll of economists by the central bank. The poll forecasts year-on-year growth of 2.5% in 2022. Latin America’s No. 3 economy shrank 9.9% in 2020 after contracting 2% in 2019 and 2.6% in 2018. “We are on the road to economic recovery. Argentina is growing, recuperating jobs and will recover income,” Fernandez said in a televised speech. “There are very important sectors of the economy that are at a similar level or above 2019. In addition, in 2019 there was a recession and now there is a recovery. This year investment recovered, 14 points above 2019 so far,” he added. Gross domestic product grew 2.5% in the first quarter of the year versus the same 2020 period, beating analysts’ forecasts. The rise came after a 4.3% contraction in the fourth quarter of last year and a record 19% plunge in the second quarter of 2020, when Argentina was getting hit hardest by the pandemic. But inflation remains a problem in Argentina. Consumer prices in the grains-producing country rose 3.2% in June alone, taking 12-month inflation above 50% for the first time since early last year. Prices rose 25.3% in the first half of 2021 and were up 50.2% versus a year earlier, according to official data. July inflation data is expected to be released next week. Reporting by Eliana Raszewski and Hernan Nessi; Writing by Hugh Bronstein; Editing by Frances Kerry and Steve Orlofsky Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.