The world's two largest economies would make the China-US phase one deal official soon. The two nations agreed to sign the agreement "very shortly," according to U.S. President Donald Trump.
"We just achieved a breakthrough on the trade deal and we will be signing it very shortly," Trump announced in an event in Florida.
At the same time, his Chinese counterpart, President Xi Jinping, through a phone call said phase one deal will benefit not just their respective countries but other nations as well.
"The U.S. is willing to maintain close communication with China and strive to sign and implement it as soon as possible," Xi said in a phone call with Trump.
The president said the two nations and the markets elsewhere in the world received the development with remarkable optimism.
Indeed, Wall Street said China was the best-performing market after Russia for 2019. Analyst estimates that the China CSI-300 index will end the year jumping by about 30%. Analysts also believed that there won't be any sell-off in Chinese markets for the last ten days of 2019.
Most recently, JP Morgan announced it will start operations in the country, welcoming China's decision to increase access of foreign direct investments. This means that more foreign entities will have majority stakes should they decide to set up business in the country. Analysts believed Visa and Mastercard will be setting up shop soon in the country.
With that, Xi hoped that bilateral relations could come back to its peaceful levels and that the Trump administration will continue to coordinate and cooperate with China.
Under the China-US phase one deal, the two nations agreed to reduce tariffs on respective goods. Beijing also agreed to increase its purchase of U.S. agricultural products.
In the days following talks on phase one deal, China followed through immediately with its promise. It exempted from tariffs imports of six chemical and oil products from the US for one year starting Dec. 26.
The reduced tariffs applied to four chemical products such as metallocene, high-density polyethylene, and a special grade of linear low-density polyethylene. The country also reduced tariffs on refined oil products including white oil and food-grade petroleum wax.
China has been welcoming with all requests from the Trump administration even ahead of the announcement of the phase one deal. Early in December, the Asian powerhouse waived import tariffs for U.S. soybeans and pork products. At the same time, it agreed to cancel tariffs that would have been imposed on Dec. 15.
