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BEIJING, Jan. 19-- With the arrival of a new decade, one predictable thing about China in the 2020s is that it is shifting into a higher-quality economy that is more open and abounds with new opportunities for global businesses. Despite a cloud of challenges, China's economy wrapped up 2019 with 6.1-percent GDP growth as a top performer among comparable economies. Acting as a "locomotive," it is expected to contribute to around 30 percent of global growth. Emerging from the 2010s larger and in better shape, the world's second-largest economy is increasingly shaped by the growing power of consumers and the services and emerging sectors, all believed to stimulate China's huge potential in market, reform and innovation. These trends can offer glimpses into the positive changes the world can expect from China in the new decade: CONSUMERS FIRST Domestic consumers now account for over 60 percent of China's economic growth. Despite a moderation of headline GDP growth, retail sales, a major gauge of consumption, grew 8 percent in 2019. Looking ahead, analysts expect the country's consumption to be shaped by a booming middle-income group, fast urbanization and technology advances, among other trends. With the world's largest middle-income population, China has great potential to increase the contribution of consumption, especially that of services consumption, to its GDP growth, said Liu Qiao, dean of the Guanghua School of Management at Peking University, predicting that services consumption would make up about 60 percent or more in China's total consumption by 2035. | 
