China's consumer price index (CPI), the main gauge of inflation, rose at a slowing annual rate of 2.4 percent in November, the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) said on Thursday.

Rises in the CPI have now slowed for seven straight months because of a sharp fall in world commodity prices and sluggish demand amid the global financial crisis.

The CPI figure, compared with 4 percent in October, 4.6 percent in September, 4.9 percent in August and a nearly 12-year-high of 8.7 percent in February, was broadly in line with most forecasts.

It was the smallest CPI increase since January 2007, which saw the index rising by 2.2 percent at an annualized rate.

Food prices, which account for more than a third of the CPI calculation and have been the main driver of inflation since last year, climbed 5.9 percent in November from a year earlier, down from 8.5 percent in October and 9.7 percent in September.

Prices of non-food items, the other two-thirds of the CPI calculation, edged up 0.6 percent last month, said the NBS.

From January to November, the inflation indicator rose 6.3 percent year-on-year, 6.0 percent for urban areas and 6.9 percent for rural regions, the NBS said.