China struggling to get past its translation bottleneck

China is scurrying to get a sufficient number of translators for the Olympics and, beyond that, the Shanghai World Expo in 2010.

The shortage is no surprise. According to professionals in the field, for years the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, the country's top political advisory body, has been calling for more awareness of the translation industry, but China was too busy opening up in other areas.

The shortage of translators, particularly for Chinese to English, was one of the major concerns of a two-day conference held last weekend in Beijing, co-hosted by the Translators Association of China and the China International Publishing Group (CIPG).