India’s purchase of 200 tonnes of gold from the International Monetary Fund displayed the economic strength of the world’s two fastest growing large economies, New Delhi said on Tuesday night.

Pranab Mukherjee, India’s finance minister, said the $6.7bn (€4.57bn, £4.10bn) bullion buy reflected the power of an economy that laid claim to the fifth largest foreign reserves in the world and that had the resilience to reach 9 per cent economic growth in a year’s time.