China's total trade value from January to November recorded at 28.5 trillion yuan ($4.05 trillion), up 2.4 percent year on year. Photo: VCG

Chinese experts rolled out optimistic estimates for China-US trade in 2020, some of them predicting double-digit bilateral trade growth, as the two countries move to an initial trade agreement that is seen as a turning point amid 18-month-long trade war.

One expert also argued that China's overall trade will grow up by 10 percent next year as the country improves its trade structure by evolving toward a high-quality trade pattern and multiplies trade channels. 

All the five economists interviewed by the Global Times on Monday predicted that China-US trade would rise in 2020 on the basis of the "phase one" trade deal reached between the two countries. 

Of the three economists that gave detailed forecasts on China-US trade next year, two predicted that China will see a double-digit growth in US dollar-denominated exports to the US in 2020. 

The most optimistic one predicted that China's exports to the US will grow by 15 percent on a yearly basis in 2020. He declined to be named. 

Another expert from the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences forecast, also on condition of anonymity, that China will see exports to the US rise by 10 percent year-on-year next year. 

Experts became even more upbeat when it comes to forecasting China's imports from the US next year. An analyst who asked not to be named, said that it should be "certain" for China to see double-digit growth in imports from the US in 2020. 

"A 30 percent or higher growth should be improbable," the analyst told the Global Times on Monday.

The experts' predictions came after China and the US reached consensus on the "phase one" agreement text on Friday. The deal is largely read by the market as a sort of turning point in the two countries' sagging trade relations. 

Reuters on Monday cited US Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer as saying that the phase one deal will "nearly double US exports to China over the next two years." 

However, experts cautioned that trade between China and the US is hard to go back to where it was before the trade war in the short period given uncertainties of the talks and the hurt it has already done to their trade relations.

"China will import more agricultural products from the US, as the phase one deal text said. But the two countries' bilateral trade volume is unlikely to return to pre-trade war levels in the short term," Li Chunding, a professor at China Agricultural University, told the Global Times on Monday.

China's trade with the US slumped by 15.2 percent on a yearly basis to $495 billion in the first 11 months this year, customs data showed. 

Li also said that China's overall trade will grow next year, presumably by 5-10 percent, as the nation's trade structure is evolving toward a high-quality pattern, while the growth of cross-border e-commerce is also lending momentum to the country's overall trade. He also said that the potential reach of Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership next year would boost China's overseas trade. 

In the first 11 months, China's trade slipped by 2.2 percent on a yearly basis to $4.14 trillion, according to the customs data.