Henry Liu, President of FIT (the Fédération Internationale des Traducteurs/ International Federation of Translators), Vice-President Reiner Heard and Secretary General Sabine Colombe visited the Azerbaijan Translation Centre at the Cabinet of Ministers (AzTC) March 31 for a roundtable discussion with its Director Afag Masud.

After greeting the visiting guests AzTC Director Masud highlighted the history of AzTC. “Azerbaijan is rapidly integrating into the world community. “This dynamic development of our country is being felt in all areas. AzTC keeps up with the times. The high status given to our Centre is an expression of a high appreciate by President of Azerbaijan Republic Ilham Aliyev in the field of language and translation. AztC with this new status has been functioning for over six months with nine books published under the title ‘Series of AzTC Books’. Aydın Yol weekly newspaper and Khazar quarterly magazine are our publications. Our website is available in eight languages.  And we have initiated Bay Leaf, the first contest to stimulate the development of the translation. We are going to launch our e-library açıqkitab.az in the nearest future. Besides, our publications have websites. Jointly with the Azerbaijan Youth Translators’ Association (AGTA) we also embarked on monitoring in the area of translation teaching and are planning to discuss related reforms in a meeting with the Scientific Board…. We have compiled a catalogue of hundreds of textbooks and manuals as appear to us expedient to translate into the Azerbaijani language to be used at local universities. We have discussed the matter at issue with the State Students Admission Commission and we intend to translate them. Our online catalogue of literary works is updated in five languages.

The Director talked about the successes achieved through international book fairs. “During the 6-month activity AzTC has successfully presented Azerbaijan at the international book fairs in Goteborg, Istanbul, Sharjah, Cairo, Minsk. We are preparing to participate at the international book fair to be held soon in London. We have done a lot of work. You can visit our website for more information.”   

Later on, Dr. Liu shared his views: “I am indeed impressed at your works. As can be seen from your catalogue, you have performed big and ambitious tasks.  What  surprises us the most is that you have achieved all these milestones just within a six-month period. It is a praiseworthy effort you have made,extending from the translation teaching to achieving professionalism in the translation field. It is your success to start from the basic level, I mean the education. It is important that young specialists be channeled into, or be encouraged to get involved in, the translation industry.” 

“Regarding this status given to AzTC by Azerbaijan’s President Ilham Aliyev is an indicator of his serious attitude to the language and translation. We know each other through our languages and literatures. In this regard, translations play a great role in the establishment of literary and cultural ties between peoples across the world. And we want you to participate in FIT’s next Congress to be held in 2017, Australia. And I would like to mention that translators/interpreters are authorized in most leading countries. We have done some work to implement these standards since FIT was established 62 years ago, and we expect AzTC will contribute to this cause through our mutual cooperation,” he concluded.  

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