The steep fall of China’s consumer prices fuels fears of an economically harmful deflationary spiral. At the beginning of the year, they fell for the fourth time in a row and more sharply than at any time in over 14 years: at 0.8 percent, the decline was the sharpest since September 2009, according to data published by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) on Thursday. Producer prices are also falling. The corresponding PPI index fell by 2.5 percent in January compared to the previous year.