How to use global properties in flex application descriptor?

Question

I'd like to refactor my adobe flex application descriptor as follows:

<application xmlns="..."> 
    <id>...</id> 
    <versionNumber>1.0.0</versionNumber> 
    <versionLabel>${versionNumber} - My Label</versionLabel>
</application>

Is that possible?

Further, could I also fetch the values from a application.properties file and reference it directly withint the application.xml?