BEIJING, Aug. 19 (Xinhua) -- The number of tour guides who can speak less-popular foreign languages are insufficient in China, according to a report jointly issued by the Ministry of Education and the National Language Committee.

Though tour guides with authorized professional certificates across China increased at an annual rate of 20.3 percent in the 2000-2005 period, the ratio of foreign language speaking tour guides reduced from 16.7 percent in 2002 to 10 percent in 2005, the report says.

Tour guides who can speak Vietnamese, Thai, Mongolian, Korean, German, Spanish, Italian and other less-popular languages are extremely insufficient, it adds, but fails to provide details.

Lack of adequate foreign language speaking tour guides poses a problem to the 2008 Olympic Games and 2010 Shanghai World Expo, the report says.

The report proposed training of more less-popular language tour guides and opening of more training programs to help tour guides improve services.

The report revealed that the total number of tour guides with authorized certificates reached 422,700 by September 2006.