China plans further trade talks with U.S. in January

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01:29

China's Ministry of Commerce (MOFCOM) said Thursday that there are plans to hold further trade talks with the U.S. in January 2019, adding that both sides have been closely communicating on details of the future meetings.

The two countries have both implemented measures to ease the tensions, the potential for trade cooperation between the two sides was huge, and the nature of win-win cooperation would not change, Gao Feng, the ministry's spokesperson, said in a regular briefing.

Gao added that bilateral trade cooperation has played an important role in promoting China-U.S. trade relations over the past years. The two countries should further utilize the great potentials of trade cooperation despite differences.

U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said Tuesday that the U.S. and China plan to hold trade talks in January next year and strive to reach an agreement before the deadline. Mnuchin also said that the two sides have had several call conversations in recent weeks.

China has noticed that the U.S. Trade Representative's Office last Friday officially postponed the scheduled date of a tariff rate increase on Chinese goods of 200 billion U.S. dollars to March 2, 2019.

Gao said China welcomes the delay in the U.S. tariff increase from 10 percent to 25 percent, and China also cut tariff on imported cars from the U.S. Both sides have taken the initiative to release positive signals, which is an important condition for smooth talks.

(CGTN's Sun Tianyuan also contributed to the story.)