PORT OF SPAIN - Chinese President Xi Jinping pledged here on Sunday to scale up assistance to Caribbean nations in an effort to give fresh impetus to the cooperation between China and the region.

China will set up one or two demonstration centers in the next three years to showcase agricultural technologies, Xi said at a luncheon meeting with leaders of Trinidad and Tobago, Suriname, Guyana, Dominica, Barbados, Jamaica, the Bahamas, Grenada and Antigua and Barbuda, all of which are Caribbean countries with diplomatic ties with Beijing.

China will also send 100 medical staff to the Caribbean region, train 100 part-time postgraduate students and provide government scholarship for 1,000 students, Xi said.

As long as the two sides uphold the principles of mutual respect, equality, mutual benefit and common development, bring into play their respective advantages and expand bilateral cooperation, China and Caribbean nations can be good partners that respect and trust each other politically, benefit and complement each other economically, and learn from each other culturally, the Chinese president added.

Xi noted that the relations between China and Caribbean countries are becoming more mature and closer, adding the priority for the two sides now is how to make concerted efforts to seek common development for the benefit of the people.

The Caribbean leaders, for their part, thanked China for its long-term assistance and welcomed the new measures put forward by Xi, which they said would boost the development of Caribbean countries.

Caribbean countries value the opportunities brought by the development of China and want to beef up cooperation with the Asian country, they said.

Xi is on a state visit to Trinidad and Tobago, the first leg of his Latin American tour, which will also take him to Costa Rica and Mexico.