According to the report, translation companies enjoyed an 18.4 percent annual increase in number between 2003 and 2011, and a 15 percent yearly growth rate is expected during the 12th Five-Year Plan period. China now has 640,000 people involved in the translation business.
"In the past 30 years, the translation industry achieved historic success in fields including politics, diplomacy, economics, military, science and culture," said Guo Xiaoyong, deputy secretary-general of the China International Publishing Group.
"In the past, most translation institutions were affiliated with government departments or State-owned companies, but more and more private translation companies emerged amid the booming industry," he said.
Guo said China's trade deficit in book copyrights narrowed year by year. In 1999, the import-to-export ratio of publications was 15-to-1, while in 2011, the ratio fell down to 2.1-to-1.
Also, China's translators translated 9,763 books into different languages between 1980 and 2009. Besides traditional translating and interpreting services, the industry also developed in movie subtitle translation production, sign-language interpretation and machine translation.
However, the overall capacity of China's translation industry still "has a considerable way to go" to meet the market demand, Guo said.
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