The producer price index (PPI) declined 4.8 percent in February, the National Bureau of Statistics said on Tuesday – the most negative reading posted since Oct 2009 – extending a long-running factory deflation cycle that began in 2012 to nearly three years. Economists and policymakers worry that the risk of deflation is rising for the world’s second-largest economy, as drag from a property market downturn and widespread factory overcapacity is compounded by an uncertain global outlook and soft commodity prices.