Macao

The main objective of the cooperation is to upgrade the competences of the Macao interpreters and increase the number of qualified interpreters available to the bilingual (Chinese-Portuguese) Macanese public administration.

The cooperation has two strands:

Cooperation with the Public Administration and Civil Service Bureau (SAFP)

Since 2006 DG Interpretation has been running interpretation training courses (Portuguese – Chinese and vice-versa), in cooperation with the Public Administration and Civil Service Bureau (SAFP) of Macao Special Administrative Region. 90 trainees have benefitted from this programme so far.

Candidates are required to have a university degree, proficiency in Portuguese and Chinese and the potential to become a conference interpreter in a limited period of time.

An international conference organised on 10-11 October 2017 in MPI marked the 10th anniversary of the EU-Macao cooperation in the field of interpreter training, whose importance is gaining in strength since Macao has been designated "the commercial and training platform" between mainland China and Portuguese speaking countries.

Since 2013 the interpretation courses are part of a larger governmental training Program for Translation and Interpretation for Chinese and Portuguese.

The conference interpretation course, facilitated by DG Interpretation, covers 5 months of the program and focuses on interpretation skills, consolidation of active/passive Portuguese and promoting a better knowledge of Europe.

The participants are hosted by SAFP during the 2 months period of training in Macao. After that initial period, they come to Brussels, to complete their interpretation training, learn more about the European Union and see how interpretation techniques are applied in a multilingual work context.

Cooperation with the Macao Polytechnic Institute (MPI)

MPI is the oldest interpretation school in Macao. DG Interpretation cooperates with MPI by organising training for trainers seminars (Chinese-Portuguese) every year. So far, DG Interpretation organised and conducted seven of these courses and has trained 60 students in total.

The participants of these seminars are mainly language and interpretation teachers at universities in Mainland China offering Portuguese Studies (Beijing, Shanghai, Tianjin, Dalian). Staff interpreters of the Trade and Foreign Affairs Ministries in Beijing also participate in these courses.