(Yicai Global) Feb. 25 -- Stock markets on the Chinese mainland extended their two-week climb this morning after President Xi Jinping named the financial sector as one of the country's core advantages in the global market.

The Shanghai Composite Index opened at 2,838.39, up 1.22 percent from Feb. 22, while the Shenzhen Component Index gained 1.78 percent to start at 8,804.97. The ChiNext price Index, which tracks growth enterprises in Shenzhen, began 2.13 percent higher at 1,487.30.

The gains come on the back of Xi's latest comments on the development of China's financial market as well as substantial progress in trade talks with the United States.

China's financial sector is one of the country's main competitive pillars, Xi told the Communist Party of China Central Committee Political Bureau at a study meeting on Feb. 22. Financial security is critical to national security and the financial system is a fundamental mechanism in economic and social development, he added.

Smoothing trade friction between the world's two largest economies also gave a boost to the markets after US President Donald Trump said he "will be delaying" the scheduled March 1 tariff hike on Chinese imports after making "substantial progress in our trade talks with China on important structural issues including intellectual property protection, technology transfer, agriculture, services, currency, and many other issues."

China's US delegation backed that up the same day, highlighting that "substantial progress" was made during high-level economic and trade talks in Washington.

The US leader also suggested a possible summit with Xi could be on the cards at the Trump's  Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida as the two nations further their talks.

The pair agreed at the Buenos Aires G20 summit in late November that they would temporarily pull the plug on their heated trade dispute, which had seen hundreds of billions of goods moving between China and the US hit with increased import tariffs. Washington was set to hike its 10 percent tariff on USD250 billion worth of Chinese imports to 25 percent in the New Year, but agreed to hold off until at least March 1 if Beijing would engage in discussions about intellectual property theft and forced technology transfers in China.