China's President Xi Jinping on Friday pledged $3 billion in aid over the next three years to help developing countries recover from the coronavirus pandemic, and proposed setting up an international forum on vaccine cooperation.

The forum would be "for vaccine-developing and producing countries and other stakeholders to explore ways of promoting fair and equitable distribution of vaccines around the world," Xi said at the G20 Global Health Summit, urging major countries to make more vaccines available to developing nations.

(Reporting by Beijing Newsroom; writing by Tom Daly; editing by John Stonestreet) ((tom.daly@thomsonreuters.com; +86 10 5669 2119;))