China's current group of 60,000 professional translators can hardly cope with the fast growing market demand, which has been bolstered by economic prosperity and cross-border exchanges, according to a leading industry figure.

Liu Xiliang, director of the China Association of Translation, said at the First Session of the China Translation Industry Forum held in Shanghai that some 60,000 people have obtained professional foreign language translation proficiency tests authorized by the Ministry of Personnel since the national proficiency certification system was introduced in 2003. In addition, he noted, there are hundreds of thousands of people doing translation-related work in China, as a market worth no less than 12.7 billion-yuan (about 1.6 billion U.S. dollars) has taken shape, and the market is crying out for more.

The profession of translators and interpreters, which started as early as 2,000 years ago in China, now has more than 3,000 registered translation agencies nationwide. Translation has become one of the most popular and fashionable jobs in the country. Of the 17,704 people who took the national qualification tests for English, French and Japanese last year, only 3,975 got the professional translation certificates. The Asian translation market as a whole now takes up 30 percent of the market share in the global translation business, whose market value has exceeded 13 billion U.S. dollars.