NEW DELHI - India will set up its first foreign drug inspection office in China in March next year to inspect manufacturing sites and check medical goods bound for India, reported local daily The Times of India on Saturday.

The drug controller general of India will send about four Indian drug inspectors to Beijing to make sure that good manufacturing practices are being complied with in Chinese medical production companies which sell their products to India, said the newspaper.

Drug controller general of India Dr G.N. Singh told the newspaper that the Commerce Ministry of India has cleared the proposal.

Health minister Ghulam Nabi Azad recently said that in the last two years, 10 Chinese bulk drug manufacturing firms were inspected and the registration certificate of one firm and 16 import licences were canceled due to poor drug quality and their failure to comply with GMP.

"We will gradually ask China to only allow drugs exports from manufacturing sites which have been inspected by Indian drug inspectors. We want to ensure safety, efficacy and quality of Chinese drugs," Dr Singh was quoted as saying by the newspaper.

"GMP of Chinese drug firms has to be certified by our regulators. This is a practice of most countries including the US FDA (Food and Drug Agency). To protect the interest of Indians, we have to go international," he added.

At present, more than 45 percent of bulk drug exporters registered in India are from China. The number of registered Chinese bulk drug manufacturers in India is around 280, and altogether 417 different drugs from the country are registered, according to the report.