BEIJING/MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 12th October, 2019) Negotiators from Beijing and Washington have achieved significant progress in various areas during the latest round of bilateral high-level trade talks in the United States, China's Commerce Ministry said on Saturday.
"China and the United States have achieved significant progress in various areas after a new round of high-level trade and economic consultations on Thursday and Friday," the ministry said in a statement.
The Commerce Ministry added that the areas where the sides had achieved progress included agriculture, intellectual property rights protection, exchange rate, financial services, expansion of trade cooperation, technology transfer and dispute settlement.
The statement noted that the sides had had open, highly effective and constructive discussions of issues of mutual interests.
"The sides discussed preparation for the next round of consultations and agreed to work hard together for achieving a final agreement," the ministry argued.
The latest round of bilateral talks on a new trade deal took place on Thursday and Friday.
On Friday, US President Donald Trump said that Beijing and Washington had reached the first phase of the trade deal, having agreed on Currency exchange, technology transfer, intellectual property, financial services and purchase of up to $50 billion worth of US agricultural goods by China.
The talks were held ahead of Washington's planned increase of trade tariffs on $250 billion worth of Chinese goods from 25 percent to 30 percent on October 15.
However, on Friday, US Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said Washington will not raise the tariffs the next week.
