US-China agree to restart trade talks after Xi-Trump meeting on G20 sidelines: Report

China and the United States involved in a prolonged trade war agreed to restart trade talks at a high-stakes Xi-Trump trade meeting in Japan, news agency AFP reported quoting China state media Xinhua. 

The report also said that the US has agreed not to impose new tariffs on its exports. 

US President Donald Trump said trade meeting with China's President Xi Jinping was "excellent" with negotiations now "back on track".

"We had a very good meeting with President Xi of China... I would say excellent," Trump said after the talks on the sidelines of the G20 summit.

The crunch talks on the damaging trade war between the world's top two economies came on the sidelines of a meeting of the G20 in Japan's Osaka, with all eyes on whether the pair would agree a truce.

Both sides were expected to issue official formal statements later, but Chinese state media said Washington had committed not to impose any new tariffs on Beijing's exports and that the two sides had agreed to restart trade and economic talks.

The outcome was likely to be seen as a win, with experts cautioning ahead of the meeting that a full agreement was unlikely but a truce that avoided a new tit-for-tat round of tariffs would be positive.

Trump has struck a conciliatory tone since his arrival in Japan for the G20 summit, despite saying China's economy was going "down the tubes" before he set out for Osaka, and appeared keen to reach an agreement.

(With inputs from AFP)