Premier Wen Jiabao will leave for Europe on January 27 and is expected to focus on how to tackle the global economic crisis during his visit.

His tour will take him to Germany, Spain, the UK and Belgium, where he will visit the European Union (EU) headquarters in Brussels, Foreign Ministry spokesperson Jiang Yu told a regular news briefing on Tuesday.

He will also travel to Davos in Switzerland to attend the World Economic Forum during his EU visit, which ends on February 2.

Wen's visit to Europe will be the first by a Chinese leader after Sino-EU ties soured because of French President Nicolas Sarkozy's meeting with the Dalai Lama early last month.

"We hope Wen's visit will help increase the international community's confidence (in China) and prompt it to tackle the financial crisis jointly," Jiang said.

(China Daily January 21, 2009)