NEW DELHI, June 1 (Xinhua) -- India's Finance Minister Arun Jaitley on Thursday played down the impact of government's demonetization move on the country's economic growth.
"Through demonetization, the government created a new normal, with a big step in removing the earlier scenario of cash economy and shadow economy," Jaitley told a press conference while speaking on the achievements of his ministry in the last three years,.
Jaitley's comments came following India's federal Central Statistics Office (CSO) figures showing India's economic growth rate slowed sharply in the January-March quarter to 6.1 percent from 7 percent in the previous quarter.
"Seven to 8 percent growth is fairly reasonable level of growth and very good by global standard and reasonable by Indian standard," Jaitley said.
The new figures have stripped India of the tag of being world's fastest growing major economy.
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi's decision in November last year to withdraw currency notes of 500 and 1000 Indian rupees from India's financial system triggered panic among the people who queued outside banks and ATMs to exchange the banned currency notes and withdraw cash.
The sudden decision took 86 percent of the currency out of circulation overnight from India.
Analysts blame demonetization for the decline in GDP in the fourth quarter of 2016-17.
