Translators in demand.

The global translation market grosses US$13 billion annually. The Asia-Pacific region has a 30% share of this market, and annual turnover in China is about Rmb12.7 billion (HK$11.9 billion). According to a survey by an authoritative US institution, the global translation market is expected to gross US$22.7 billion by 2005, with turnover in China reaching Rmb20 billion (HK$18.8 billion). There is huge potential for development.

In spite of the demand, there is a dire shortage of translators on the mainland. Existing translation companies are only capable of handling between Rmb1 billion and Rmb1.5 billion (HK$0.94 billion to HK$1.4 billion) of the business.

Large amounts of foreign language materials are left without translation, so the failure to assimilate the international flow of information has cost China plenty of business opportunities.

Jobs roll in.

According to the Translators' Association of China, there are nearly 3,000 translation agencies in the country after nearly 10 years of development, with some 400 companies registered in Beijing. Most are small operations, with a variable standard of translation.

Very often, there are big discrepancies between the source and target languages because of poor translation. For example, some product manuals translated "numerically-controlled generators" as "digital generators" and "bonded warehouses" as "warehouses for tax protection". On the other hand, due to the lack of scientific and centralised management, translation companies have difficulty soliciting business, and clients have difficulty finding good translators.

As pointed out by people in the industry, China's entry into the WTO and hosting of the Beijing 2008 Olympics will give a great boost to economic development, but the backward translation market will hinder China's move towards internationalisation.

Good translators in heavy demand

UNESCO has designated Beijing, Shanghai and Wuhan as three cities that usually supply foreign language translators. Translators active in these three markets are mostly retired translators from state ministries and commissions, returning overseas Chinese, returning overseas students and foreign language experts.

International conference offering simultaneous interpretation service.

While it is not that difficult to find a good translator in places like Beijing, it is often necessary to have interpreters "airlifted" to inland cities, even to some of the coastal ones. A recent international conference in Qingdao reportedly had trouble finding senior interpreters. And an enterprise in Shenzhen had to fly in more than 20 interpreters from Beijing's Oriental Diligence Translation Service for an international seminar.

Due to great market demand, especially the shortage of people with adaquate translation skills, a good translator can make over Rmb10,000 (HK$9,433) a month.

The Chongqing Academy of Social Sciences hosted a large international conference - the Chongqing Development Forum - not long ago. The organisers were shocked when they read the rates quoted by translation companies for simultaneous interpretation services.

Local interpreters were asking for Rmb3,000 (HK$2,830) a day, but they backed out when they found out about the nature of the job. Finally, the organisers had to fly in interpreters from Beijing and Shanghai at a daily rate of Rmb4,000 (HK$3,773) and pay for their room and board during their stay in Chongqing.

According to a teacher who accepts translation offers on the side, simultaneous interpretation means that the interpreter has to lucidly and accurately repeat in five seconds in another language what the speaker has said. One can imagine the difficulty and intensity of this task.

Simultaneous interpreters basically charge by the hour, and the fees include time for going through relevant materials beforehand. The going hourly rate is between Rmb400 and Rmb800 (HK$377 and HK$754), and between Rmb2,000 and Rmb3,000 (HK$1,886 and HK$2,830) for top interpreters.

Often, two or three interpreters have to work as a team and take turns interpreting at lengthy international academic conferences or negotiations. It is not surprising for an interpreter to be making over Rmb10,000 from a single assignment.

Companies employ many foreigners.

Following China's WTO entry, CEOs of multinational companies and ministers of foreign countries have been arriving in a steady stream, and different trades and professions have been hosting international conferences one after another, thus bringing booming business to translation agencies.

Miss Yu, who works for the Beijing representative office of a Finnish company, says business used to be very slow at the end of the year, but now they have their hands full even in a slow season.

Large translation companies often require long advance bookings for their service. The manager of Oriental Diligence Translation Service also says that it is difficult to tell how many multinational CEOs and foreign ministerial officials have visited and how many international conferences have been held in Beijing since the end of 2002. At present, an average translation company undertakes one to two simultaneous interpretation assignments for international conferences each month and handles general business interpreting on a daily basis.

Localisation breeds a new industry

Interpreters work on the latest project.

Localisation of information is a new industry, born in the early 1990s. It is mainly about helping clients adapt to local needs using localised products and services to overcome language, cultural barriers and technical problems in different regional markets.

According to statistics from the Localisation Standards Industry Association (LISA), this industry grosses about US$15 billion annually and has forward momentum. More important are the tremendous economic benefits localisation generates. The US$1.5 billion invested by the world's top 20 companies in localisation of information can yield US$50 billion in business turnover. With an input-output ratio as high as 1:30, it is indeed a sunrise industry.

Such a huge market is indeed attractive. In the view of the Translators' Association of China, WTO accession and the successful bid to host the Beijing 2008 Olympics not only provide an enormous drive to China's sustained economic growth but have greatly increased the demand for translation services and localized information.

Arabic translators are rare commodities.

China's localisation market is expected to see a golden period of development, with annual turnover reaching Rmb21 billion (HK$19.8 billion) over the next few years. However, only about one-tenth of the international information can be localised because most mainland translation companies are small-scale operations of poor standard, even though their services only cost one-tenth to one-fifth the international market price. The industry has yet to come of age.

SJTU Sunway Software made a constructive and bold move under the circumstances. Its landmark launch of the Oriental Express 2003 and Oriental Dictionary 2003 translation software and Lingoworld translation service signifies a Chinese information enterprise's strides towards becoming a top-notch international enterprise.

The two new translation software programmes are network sinicisation packages, specially designed for use on popular foreign language websites. These sinicisation packages can analyse the languages used on these websites, build language databases and quickly translate the web pages into Chinese. The quality of translation is comparable to human translation of a high quality.

Lingoworld, which was launched at the same time as the translation software, is a large-scale translation chain providing localisation services. It not only helps Internet users but provides them with all-round translation services. It greatly shortens the time foreign information reaches Chinese users and accelerates the internationalisation of Chinese information.

According to an executive of SJTU Sunway's Translation Department, translation is a special industry with an unique character: no company can employ all translators, and no translator knows all languages.

Lingoworld makes use of the most effective and scientific means, mainly the Internet, to bring translators together to achieve the optimum sharing and utilisation of resources. Lingoworld currently has over 2,000 members and has member firms in different parts of the country.

from special correspondent Wu Nan, Beijing

(Images courtesy of Xue Yuan)