China US Photo: Xinhua

China has said it will extend tariff exclusions for six types of US imports, which are subject to Beijing's countermeasures against the US Section 301 action, by an additional year from Saturday.

Chinese analysts said the new round of extensions for tariff exclusions is a goodwill gesture toward the US from China and also part of a reciprocal move.

According to a Friday statement from the Customs Tariff Commission of the State Council, China's cabinet, six types of products from the US including oil, paraffin and polyethylene are included in the exemption.

"To exclude tariffs for certain products is a conventional move that will be conducted by both countries from time to time that aims to benefit firms from each side," Gao Lingyun, an expert at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences in Beijing, who closely follows China-US trade relations, told the Global Times on Friday.

"While as the exemption comes at a critical time when the incoming Biden administration is about to take office, we could also interpret the timely move as a goodwill gesture toward the next administration from China and hopes for better cooperation with the US," Gao said.

The exemption came as China pledged to honor the phase one trade deal reached with the US, including importing a record number of soybeans from the US and the completion of paperwork such as the farm product quarantine protocols of the phase one trade deal.

Chinese imports of US soybeans surged almost three-fold in October on a year-on-year basis.

It also came days after the Office of the US Trade Representative announced plans to extend certain product exclusions on Section 301 duties for certain medical-care products from China.

Imports from the US had faced additional tariffs in retaliation for the US' Section 301 investigation covering Chinese imports.

Since September 2019, China has issued several exemptions for US goods subject to retaliatory tariffs. For example, in May this year, China announced that a list of imported products from the US would be excluded from punitive tariffs, which came just days after the US released a tariff exemption list for products from China.