China may take further action to boost its economy beyond the multi-trillion-yuan economic stimulus plan announced late last year, Premier Wen Jiabao told the Financial Times.

"We may take further new, timely and decisive measures. All these measures have to be taken pre-emptively before an economic retreat," he told the business daily, in an interview to be published Monday.

In November, China unveiled a spending package worth four trillion yuan (586 billion dollars) by the end of 2010. It was aimed at boosting domestic consumer demand amid slackening overseas demand for China's manufactured goods.

Wen is due to meet British Prime Minister Gordon Brown in London on Monday, on the final leg of a European tour that has taken in the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, as well as Berlin, Brussels and Madrid.

In the interview, Wen repeated his defence of the yuan exchange rate against US accusations that Beijing was manipulating its currency to boost exports, saying it intended to keep it stable at a "balanced and reasonable level".

"If we have a drastic fluctuation in the exchange rate of the renminbi (yuan), it would be a big disaster," he said.