Chinese Vice Premier Liu He and U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai met virtually on Saturday morning to discuss trade issues between the two countries.

Liu is also a member of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China Central Committee and chief of the Chinese side of the China-U.S. comprehensive economic dialogue.

The conversation marked the second time that Liu and Tai have spoken with each other and it followed Tai's speech on Monday saying that she would seek frank talks with Chinese counterpart to discuss progress made under the phase one trade agreement.

The two sides agreed that Sino-U.S. economic and trade relations are of key importance to both countries and the world. They further agreed that they should strengthen bilateral economic and trade exchanges and cooperation, according to a release of Chinese Ministry of Commerce (link in Chinese).

They exchanged views on the implementation of the Sino-U.S. economic and trade agreement, according to the release. The two sides also expressed their own concerns and agreed to resolve each other's reasonable concerns through consultation.

China negotiated with the U.S. on the cancellation of tariffs and sanctions and clarified its position on China's economic development model and industrial policies, the release said.

They promised to continue talks based on equality and mutual respect, so as to create good conditions for the healthy development of economic and trade relations between the two countries as well as the recovery of the world economy.

China and the U.S. signed the phase one trade deal in January 2020 as a part of phased mitigation between the world's two largest economies' tariff battle since 2018.

According to the deal, China will purchase an additional $200 billion worth of U.S. goods and services, including $32 billion in U.S. farm products, during the two-year period from January 1, 2020, through December 31, 2021.

As of August, China's purchases of covered agricultural products reached 92 percent of the year-to-date target in the deal (data from the Chinese import statistics showed) or 89 percent using the U.S. export data, a tracker of think tank Peterson Institute for International Economies showed.