Chinese Premier Li Keqiang to visit France, Belgium

Beijing: China`s Premier Li Keqiang is to visit France and Belgium on a wide-ranging trip starting this weekend, the foreign ministry said Tuesday.

Li will visit the Paris headquarters of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) and attend the 17th EU-China leaders` meeting in Brussels, the ministry said in a statement on its website.

The trip will last from June 28 to July 2. 

French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius said on a visit to Beijing last month that Li would visit Paris and Toulouse.

Topics for his visit would include "the development of joint projects in third markets, be they Asian or African markets", Fabius said at the time.

The EU is China`s biggest trading partner, while the Asian giant is the EU`s second-largest.

Relations between the two global commercial heavyweights are sometimes coloured by trade disputes but have shown dramatic development over the decades, and Europe`s major economies are all prospective members of the Beijing-led Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank.