New Delhi: According to Arun Jaitley, the Finance minister, the country's economic fundamentals are strong.

Addressing a press conference on Tuesday, the FM shared that the country's economic fundamentals are strong. After the first quarter GDP results for FY18 were announced, there was criticism which led the FM to suggest that the government and the ministry would be ready with a response.

The FM suggested that there has been a series of brainstorming sessions as well as meetings with the Prime Minister. He said, "In the past 3 years, India has been the strongest and fastest economies...."

He also shared that the ministry remained committed to maintain the GDP growth.

It is natural that when such structural reforms are created, for some brief period, these reforms result in some "parinaam", but in the medium to long term, there is advantage.

Referring to the GDP of 5.7, a three year low, he suggested, "Last month, I had mentioned that we will appropriately respond to the challenges on GST... India has remained world's fastest growing economy for the last three years."

He explained further that from 2014 onwards, there has a been steady decline in inflation, as well as current account deficits. "Last year it was as low as 0.7%," he added.

The conference saw Jaitley join by officials from his ministry, who made detailed presentations. Ashok Lavasa, Finance Secretary; Dr. Hasmukh Adhia, Revenue Secretary; Neeraj Kumar Gupta- Secretary-Deepam; Subhash Chandra Garg- Secretary-DEA; Rajiv Kumar- Secretary-DFS; and Chief Economic Advisor Arvind Subramaniam took the dias, and have made detailed presentations so far.

Speaking on public investments, the FM shared, "There is a need to increase public investment.Measures today will boost infra spending in a big way. Public sector banks have adequate lending capacity now, post demonetisation," says Finance Minister Arun Jaitley.

Presentations made by the ministry officials included announcements made for banking sector, Power for All, and construction of 34800 km of roads under a BharatMala programme.