China's inflation rate accelerated to 2.4 percent year-on-year in March, thegovernment said Friday, driven by higher food prices.The increase in the consumer price index (CPI) announced by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) was up from the 2.0 percent recorded in February, but marginallybelow economist forecasts of 2.5 percent reported by Dow Jones Newswires.Food prices rose 4.1 percent in March from the year before, the NBS said.The acceleration in inflation may assuage economists' concerns that the risk ofdeflation in the world's second-largest economy was rising after February's figure.China's CPI, a main gauge of inflation, rose by 2.6 percent in 2013, unchanged from2012 and well below the 3.5 percent target set by the government.The government kept the inflation goal for this year unchanged last month.