Government on Wednesday lowered India's economic growth projection for 2011-12 to 8.6 per cent from the earlier estimate of about 9 per cent and said inflation will remain high till December. The Finance Ministry said in a note that there is a perceptible slowdown in the last two quarters' growth of Indian economy and the outlook for 2011-12 has to be inferred from movements of past data. The economy grew by just 8.3 per cent in the third quarter last fiscal and 7.8 per cent in the January-March period, the lowest in five quarters.The Ministry said the current inflation is being mainly driven by seasonal effects and upward movement in crude oil, manufactured and administered fuel prices. It said, the government is working closely together with the RBI to take all appropriate steps to bring headline inflation down to 6-6.5 per cent in the near term. Inflation stood at 9.44 per cent in June. The Ministry also said there is a slowdown in corporate investment and their profits have been affected due to cost escalation of input items and raw material.The note also said that India's exports may not sustain their high growth rate in the coming months due to uncertain economic conditions in Europe, and other western markets and slowdown in global trade volumes.