Australia's national newspaper, The Australian, became the first local newspaper to launch a Mandarin-language website on Thursday, to provide an efficient news service to the country’s Chinese readers.

An in-house translation team will weekly update the Mandarin news site. The newly launched website will cover stories featuring a variety of national, regional and international news, as well as analysis pieces selected by the newspaper's editors.

“With more than half a million of Australia’s migrants originating from China and the prominence of China in the region’s outlook,”  The Australian’s chief executive, Nicholas Gray told reporters, adding that the demand for Australian based content to be translated into Mandarin is higher than expected.

Echoing Gray’s observation, The Australian’s editor-in-chief Paul Whittaker said in a statement: "China is a phenomenon, an outstanding example of growth and change in what we now know will be the Asian century."

News coverage in Mandarin-language is a move to connect Chinese readers with stories about Australia and the Asia-Pacific region. The smart strategy comes after Mandarin became the second spoken language after English in Australia. According to 2016 census data the country has nearly 596,000 Mandarin speakers who constitute 2.5 percent of the total population. It has spiraled up from the 1.6 percent, 2011 census, according to the Australian Bureau of Statistics.

The Australian is not the only news organization that developed its news services in Mandarin, other global news outlets providing Mandarin-language news include BBC, Reuters and The New York Times.

(Top image credit to Getty Images)