NEW DELHI (Reuters) – India’s April-June economic growth rate could be “relatively slower”, Finance Secretary Subhash Chandra Garg said, after Asia’s third largest economy recorded the slowest pace of GDP growth in 17 quarters for the first quarter of 2019.

Garg said that India’s growth rate, which has been hit due to weak consumption demand and private investment, will start turning around from the July-September quarter with favourable interest rates and an improvement in liquidity.

India’s economy grew at a much-lower-than-expected 5.8% in the January-March period, falling behind China’s pace for the first time in nearly two years, data showed.