China says trade negotiations aimed at ending a protracted tariff war with the United States are scheduled to resume in Washington next month.

Axar.az reports citing Press Tv that China’s Ministry of Commerce announced in a statement on Thursday that US and Chinese trade negotiators had earlier in the day held a phone conversation and agreed to meet “in early October” for another round of talks.

Chinese Vice Premier Liu He spoke with US Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer and US Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin on the phone and both parties agreed to hold what will be the thirteenth round of high-level economic talks in Washington at the beginning of next month, according to the statement.

The last round of the US-China trade negotiations was held in Shanghai in July, which was hailed as “constructive” but ended with no announcements.

Over the past year, the world’s two biggest economies have been involved in a tense trade war, which escalated further on September 1 when both sides started implementing fresh levies on each other’s products.

US President Donald Trump initiated the trade war with China last year when he first imposed unusually heavy tariffs on imports from the country. Since then, the two sides have exchanged tariffs on more than 360 billion dollars in two-way trade.

Washington says a primary goal of the aggressive tariff strategy is to decrease the trade imbalance with China, which totaled 379 billion dollars in 2018.