With China and its language well and truly established centre stage globally, the demand for quality translation services is soaring. But as demand far outstretched the ability of those competent to provide such services, many unqualified jumped on the bandwagon. This resulted in often second and third-rate translation services and little or no way for those seeking them to make an informed judgement about where and who to go to.

All that is about to change following the drawing up of a national standard, which comes into effect on September 1.

The "Target Text Quality Requirements for Translation Services," the first of its kind in China, has been formulated, approved and issued by the Standardization Administration of China and the General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine of China. It has just been announced.

Taking three years to complete, the standard was jointly drafted by experts from some of the most influential organizations in the sector including the China Association for Standardization, Translation Services Regulatory Commission under the Translators Association of China and the China Translation & Publishing Corp.

"The national standard, though not compulsory, is expected to better regulate China's booming translation services sector and safeguard the lawful rights of individual and institutional clients seeking translation services," said Ma Lincong, deputy secretary-general of China Association for Standardization.

The translation services industry has been growing at a fast pace since the early 1990s. Currently there are at least 4,000 professional translating service agencies and at least 10,000 consulting firms and copy/print shops offering translation services, official statistics indicate.

Source: China Daily