BEIJING?- There were a total of 72,495 companies offering language and translation services in China at the end of 2015, according to a latest report.

Among them, about 7,400 specialized in the field, according to a 2016 report on the development of China's language service industry.

The sector generated an output worth about 282 billion yuan ($41 billion) in 2015.

The report was released at the China Language Service Industry and Translators Association of China Conference on Friday.

The development of information technology had presented brand new and huge opportunities for the growth of language services, said Zhou Mingwei, head of the China Foreign Languages Publishing Administration, at the event.