FRANKFURT, Sept 9 (Reuters) - The European Central Bank raised its growth and inflation projections for this year and beyond on Thursday as the euro zone economy recovers more quickly from a devastating pandemic than most had expected. ECB President Christine Lagarde said the euro zone was on track for strong growth in the third quarter and that the ECB sees economic activity at its pre-pandemic level by year-end. She said that although the inflation outlook for this year had been revised upwards, to above the ECB"s 2% target, the current increase was expected to be temporary and that medium-term inflation was seen still well below target. Risks to growth were "broadly balanced", Lagarde said, with the ECB maintaining its risk assessment even as analysts have warned of headwinds from the Delta variant of COVID-19, China"s slowdown, and persistent bottlenecks in the global economy that have held back production in some sectors. In what it describes as the baseline scenario, the ECB expects GDP to expand by 5% this year, above the 4.6% seen in June, while growth next year is seen at 4.6%, largely unchanged from the ECB"s previous 4.7% projection. Its inflation forecast for this year was raised sharply, mostly because of higher commodities prices, production bottlenecks and a surge in consumption. But consumer price growth further down its projection horizon remains below 2%, a mark it has undershot for almost a decade. Inflation is now seen averaging 2.2% this year, above the 1.9% projected in June, while in 2022 it is seen at 1.7% against an earlier projection for 1.5% and in 2023 at 1.5%, against 1.4%. The following are the ECB"s quarterly growth and inflation projections through 2023. Figures in brackets are the ECB"s previous forecasts from June. The ECB targets inflation at 2%. 2021 2022 2023 GDP growth 5.0% (4.6%) 4.6% (4.7%) 2.1 (2.1%) Inflation 2.2% (1.9%) 1.7% (1.5%) 1.5 (1.4%) (Reporting by Balazs Koranyi; Editing by Catherine Evans and John Stonestreet)