Fidelity’s Anthony Bolton, one of the U.K.’s most successful fund managers before retiring in early 2008, is putting retirement on hold as he tries to take advantage of what he says is the “opportunity of a generation” in China.

Bolton is starting a new fund focused on companies exposed to Chinese consumer growth, The Wall Street Journal reports. “He points to studies that show consumers in emerging economies launch into a new phase of purchasing when per-capita gross domestic product hits $4,000 to $5,000,” a level China is expected to hit in 2011, the Journal reports.

“As average incomes pass this key threshold,” Bolton says, “you get a big growth in the group that can afford to make the purchases of cars, apartments, etc., and that is where China is today. He also said that China’s government gives it an advantage over more democratic countries. “It’s happening with a centrally run economy at the same time where things get done where often in other economies they get bogged down in politics,” he said.

Bolton says some state-controlled firms in China have an advantage because they have “access to deals not available to private companies,” and said he’d bear that in mind while managing his new fund. He also says that China’s currency could give a boost to investors, if the country allows the yuan to strengthen against developed nations’ currencies.