Provision of ChineseTranslation Services

By way of this Request for Expression of Interest (REOI), the United Nations Procurement Division is seeking potential vendors to provide high-quality translation services into Chinese from English (Lot 1); and/or from French, or Spanish, or Arabic, or Russian (Lot 2). Given the sensitivity of the documents of the United Nations due to the Organization's intergovernmental nature, the quality of translations must be ensured prior to delivery. The duration of the contract would be for a period of 2 years plus 3 additional options to extend for 1 year each at the sole discretion of the United Nations. Interested vendors must possess the necessary technical expertise and capacity to provide the services. Vendors expressing interest must be registered with the United Nations Global Marketplace so that they can participate in the Request for Proposals at a later stage. The United Nations reserves the right to split the award between two or more vendors. SERVICES REQUIRED Type of documents: The documents submitted for translation will cover a wide range of subjects, including texts of a general/political/social, economic/financial, legal or scientific/technical nature, and will be in different formats and of varying lengths. Source languages: The source languages will be English (Lot 1); French, or Spanish, or Arabic, or Russian (Lot 2). Volume of translation: The United Nations annual requirements for contractual translation services into Chinese from English and related typing services are estimated at 4,500,000 words (Lot 1); and at 800,000 words from French, 800,000 words from Spanish, 200,000 words from Arabic or 200,000 words from Russian (Lot 2). Vendors will be requested at a later stage to provide an evidence of ability to fulfil these requirements, including at least 3 years of historical data/evidence of ability to deliver the indicated word count. The number of words provided is based on estimations only; there is no minimum quantity guaranteed by the United Nations. Accuracy: The vendor shall guarantee the accuracy of translated documents, i.e. faithfulness to the original text and correct use of grammar and terminology. Established United Nations terminology must be consistently and strictly adhered to through use of UNTERM, the official United Nations terminology database (unterm.un.org/). Reference documents can be obtained through the United Nations Official Document System (ODS) (ods.un.org). Where no references are provided by the United Nations, the vendor shall undertake its own research. The vendors who express interest to participate in this solicitation will be requested at a LATER STAGE to submit supporting documentation such as (THESE ARE NOT REQUIRED NOW): 1. A list of source languages from which they can provide translation services into Chinese. 2. A list of texts previously translated, preferably in the general/political/social, legal, economic/financial and technical/scientific fields, indicating title and word count for each document. 3. References from the three largest clients they provided translation services to in order to prove their capacity and expertise to provide satisfactory translation for all types listed above. 4. A minimum of Twelve (12) CVs (for Lot 1: English into Chinese), 4 CVs for each of the other language combinations (Lot 2: French, Spanish, Arabic or Russian into Chinese) maintaining the ratio of 3:1 translators to revisers and proving the possession of the required expertise, experience and knowledge. Each language combination will be evaluated separately. Details of the technical evaluation criteria and other particular requirements will be provided under the Request for Proposals at a later stage.