Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee today rejected Fitch downgrade of India's credit outlook to negative saying the rating agency's action was based on older data as it ignored recent positive trends in the indian economy. Mr. Mukherjee said that the markets had already anticipated that Fitch would revise the outlook and there is no surprise in the announcement.

Mr. Mukherjee said that Fitch has not taken note of many of the government's recent initiatives including fertiliser subsidy reform, capping subsidies as a fraction of GDP, new manufacturing and telecom policies.

The Finance minister also said, Fitch has missed the process of strengthening of public finances in India as is evident by a gradual reduction of government debt / GDP ratio in the last few years, as compared to an increase in this ratio for most of the major economies in the world.