Reading project.properties in core-spring.xml file

I want to read the value of a property defined in project.properties. I am using {key} to get the value but it is giving error as

nested exception is java.lang.IllegalArgumentException: Could not resolve placeholder 'abc' in string value "${abc}" at org.springframework.beans.factory.config.PlaceholderConfigurerSupport.doProcessProperties(PlaceholderConfigurerSupport.java:211)

I tried defining in core-spring.xml but it is not working. I also put all the properties in local.properties .