According to the latest statistics released from the Secretariat of the Organizing Committee of the XVIII FIT World Congress, 1,447 people from the translation industry in 76 countries and regions had registered with the Committee to attend the Congress as of July 15, 2008.

Among the attendees are 825 from China's mainland, 586 from foreign countries, and 36 from Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan.

In terms of the numbers of participants and of countries represented, this year's Congress, to be staged from August 2-7 in Shanghai, is by far the largest ever for the FIT (International Federation of Translators).

In addition to the opening/closing ceremonies and four keynote speeches, 88 Sub-forums will be held during the Congress. These academic Sub-forums will present such themes as the teaching of translation, interpretation research, literary translation, media translation, legal translation and many more.

(China.org.cn August 1, 2008)