Chinese companies have been making market-oriented purchases of U.S. agricultural goods, according to the needs of its domestic market, and will purchase more in the future, said the Chinese Foreign Ministry on Tuesday. 

Since the beginning of this year, Chinese enterprises purchased 20 million tons of soybeans, 700,000 tons of pork, 700,000 tons of sorghum, 230,000 tons of wheat, and 320,000 tons of cotton, said the Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Geng Shuang in the regular news briefing. 

In 2017, before the trade war, the import value of China's agricultural products was 125.86 billion U.S. dollars. Among them, the total imported from the United States was 24.1 billion U.S. dollars. 

While in 2018, China's total agricultural imports reached 137.1 billion U.S. dollars, an increase of 8.9 percent year-on-year, imports from the U.S. were at 16.23 billion U.S. dollars, showing a decrease of 32.7 percent year-on-year. 

During the new round of high-level economic and trade consultations held last week, China and the United States achieved substantial progress in multiple areas including agriculture, intellectual property rights protection, exchange rates, financial services, expansion of trade cooperation, technology transfer, and dispute settlements. 

U.S. President Donald Trump said last Friday that the United States and China are close to ending the trade dispute and will eventually reach an agreement that will benefit all. 

Trump also said he is pleased to see that the U.S.-China trade negotiations have yielded "substantial phase one" progress, which is a great thing for both nations and the world at large.

Geng added both sides are unanimous about reaching an economic and trade agreement. This deal will be of considerable significance to China, the United States and the world and will benefit the economy, trade and peace.