Bloomberg's Kartik Goyal reports that India's economy grew 6.9% in the third quarter of 2011.  While that number looks great from the US, it is the lowest level of growth since the second quarter of 2009.  Inflation and exposure to Europe's economic woes are leading causes for the lower expansion rate, but India is certainly not alone feeling the effects of global slowdown.  Goyal writes:

While India’s growth is still the fastest after China among major economies, expansion in BRIC nations is starting to falter as demand from Europe wanes. China’s economy grew 9.1 percent in the third quarter from a year earlier, the least since 2009.

Manufacturing in India grew 2.7 percent in the three months through September from a year earlier, slower than the 7.2 percent gain in the previous quarter, today’s report showed. Mining fell 2.9 percent, farm output rose 3.2 percent and construction grew 4.3 percent.

Investment by companies and the government declined 0.6 percent in the three months ended Sept. 30 from a year earlier after a 7.9 percent gain in the previous three months, according to the report.

“The slippage in investment that we are seeing doesn’t jeopardize the medium-to-long term story at all,” Kaushik Basu, chief economic adviser in India’s finance ministry, told reporters in New Delhi today. He expects India’s economy to expand about 7.5 percent in the year ending March 31.

Read India’s Economy Expands Least Since 2009 as Fastest BRIC Inflation Bites here.