China offering extra U.S. agriculture purchases: FT

[October 09, 2019]    BEIJING (Reuters) - Chinese officials are offering to increase annual purchases of U.S. agricultural products as the two countries seek to resolve their trade dispute, the Financial Times newspaper reported on Wednesday, citing unnamed sources.

Vice Premier Liu He, China's top trade negotiator, is scheduled to travel to Washington for their next round of trade talks on Oct 10-11.

The report said China will offer to boost annual purchases of U.S. soybeans to 30 million tonnes from 20 million tonnes currently, adding the increase will be equivalent to about $3.25 billion in additional orders.

Beijing last month increased its purchases of U.S. agricultural products including soybeans and pork.

(This story corrects to remove reference to dollar value of extra purchases being offered by China in paragraph 1 due to Financial Times' official correction, adds amount of extra soybeans purchases FT report says China is offering in paragraph 3)

(Reporting by Hallie Gu and Shivani Singh; editing by Jason Neely)

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