Tuesday, February 23, 2010

Proposal to Make Arabic Official at WTO Expensive

But if it goes ahead we may have some more work to do :-)

Reuters reported on 26/01/10 that Arab members of the World Trade Organization (WTO) are pushing for Arabic to be made a fourth official language of the global trade body. But the heavy cost of translation, interpreting and extra printing involved in adding Arabic to the three current official languages -- English, French and Spanish -- means the proposal is running up against resistance (...) Any move to add Arabic as an official language would probably prompt a request for Chinese, and maybe even Russian -- aligning WTO language policy with the United Nations (...) Adding three languages would cost about 45 million Swiss francs ($43 million) a year, the ambassador said -- no small amount given a total WTO budget in 2009 of 189 million francs. As a result the Arab group will need to lobby hard to convince other members of the virtues of the proposal

The WTO's 153 members include a dozen Arab countries, and another six are applying to join, including Iraq, Algeria and Libya.

For all your English to Arabic and vice versa translations that will help you expand your business into the Middle East visit Arabic Language Experts at http://www.arabic.com.au/.

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