In a bid to regulate imported food and medical products from China, the US Food and Drug Administration is opening three inspection offices in Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou this week — its first such offices outside the United States.

The agency will also set up inspection offices in India, Europe and Latin America by the end of the year, with another office to follow in the Middle East in 2009. The move signals the country's increasing attempts to tighten the regulation of imported products.

Several health scares over Chinese-made products have triggered mounting safety concerns in the United States. In the latest incident, melamine and related compounds — which contaminated Chinese dairy products, killing at least four children and causing tens of thousands more to fall ill — were found in food imports from China.