PORT OF SPAIN (AFP) — Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper announced Saturday that Ottawa will invest in a scholarship program that will bring up to 1,600 Latin American and Caribbean students to study in Canada.

"Investing in these scholarships will help create a new generation of leaders in the Americas with an extensive appreciation of Canada, including our values and our technologies and knowhow," Harper said at the Summit of the Americas in Trinidad and Tobago.

"It will also help enrich institutional partnerships between Canada and other countries in the Americas," Harper said.

The program will award as many as 1,600 scholarships for Latin American and Caribbean students to pursue studies or research in Canada, officials said.

The first round of scholarships will be awarded for the fall of 2009, they added.