China February inflation quickens 1.4 percent, beating forecasts

BEIJING/SHANGHAI (Reuters) - China's consumer inflation quickened to 1.4 percent in February, beating market expectations, recovering from a five-year low in January, but factory deflation worsened, underscoring deepening weakness in the economy.

Analysts polled by Reuters predicted consumer inflation at 0.9 percent, compared with 0.8 percent in the prior month.

The producer price index declined 4.8 percent in February, the National Bureau of Statistics said on Tuesday, extending factory deflation to nearly three years.

The market had expected producer prices to fall by 4.3 percent, the same as in the prior month.

The risk of deflation is rising for the world's second-largest economy as a property market downturn and widespread factory overcapacity have been compounded by an uncertain global outlook and falling commodity prices.

(Reporting by Judy Hua and Pete Sweeney; Editing by Shri Navaratnam)