Leo Tak- hung CHAN (AATI Director of Research and Publications), Hong Kong (China)

Professor of Translation and Head of the Department of Translation, Lingnan University. Professor Chan is President of the Hong Kong Translation Society; Chief Editor of Translation Quarterly; Executive Council Member of the Translators’ Association of China; Member of the Translation Standards Committee,

FIT ( ); Founding Editor of Journal of Modern Literature in Chinese; Advisory Board Member of TTR; Chief Editor of Translation Quarterly; First Vice-President of the

Asian Studies Association of Hong Kong ( ); Advisory Member of the Committee for the Study and Translation of the Five Classics, a Confucius Institute project; and Chief Moderator of the FDEC (Translation) Examinations of the Institute of Linguists, UK ( ).

He has served as External Examiner/Advisor (Translation) for all the universities of Hong Kong with translation programs, as well as University of Auckland (New Zealand) and Concordia University (Canada).

Messa ge: Created to confront the new challenges posed to translators in an age of momentous scientific and technological development, the Association of Asian Translation Industry (AATI) is the first professional organization of its kind in Asia, composed of 12 countries and regions including

Cambodia, China, Hong Kong (China), India, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, Nepal, the Philippines, Thailand and Vietnam. The inauguration of AATI was announced at the 3rd International Conference on Translation,

Technology, and Globalization in a Multilingual Context, recently held in New Delhi, India on 23 June Maneerat Sawasdiwat Na Ayutthaya, the newly elected President, said that “the AATI is a turning point in revolutionizing language services in Asia, where the most dynamic translation industry will harmonize the balance of languages across borders.”

One important area of its future work is the implementation of unified standards and practices in translation, interpretation, localization and certification across Asia. This will receive immediate attention from AATI’s council members who are meeting in Bangkok on October.

There, too, the charter and jurisdiction will be finalized, and issues of membership, finance, fundraising, and short-long term action plans on the development of common standards in Asia will be discussed. A website has already been created as a platform for the sharing and exchange of ideas.

In the long term, the association has vowed to expand its roles in the fields of research and development, innovation and translation technology. All interested parties from the government, industry, consumers and academia will be involved in the association’s future activities.

This ensures the proper and extensive collection and dissemination of information at both national and regional levels. The founding members are hopeful that fruitful collaboration will be made possible through AATI not just in ASEAN ‐ Asian countries but also in other countries around the world.

The participants are committed to facilitating closer communication among translation professionals in what is reputedly the most densely populated region of the world, thus contributing to the development of a new era in the Asian translation industry.