diff --git a/.gitignore b/.gitignore
index 03506f39..8336faa9 100644
--- a/.gitignore
+++ b/.gitignore
@@ -13,3 +13,4 @@ dist
 *.egg
 ceilometer/versioninfo
 doc/source/api/*.rst
+*.mo
diff --git a/MANIFEST.in b/MANIFEST.in
index 9c8ae9ee..06333841 100644
--- a/MANIFEST.in
+++ b/MANIFEST.in
@@ -6,3 +6,4 @@ exclude .gitreview
 
 global-exclude *.pyc
 recursive-include public *
+recursive-include ceilometer/locale *
diff --git a/babel.cfg b/babel.cfg
new file mode 100644
index 00000000..15cd6cb7
--- /dev/null
+++ b/babel.cfg
@@ -0,0 +1,2 @@
+[python: **.py]
+
diff --git a/ceilometer/__init__.py b/ceilometer/__init__.py
index e69de29b..9ed525a3 100644
--- a/ceilometer/__init__.py
+++ b/ceilometer/__init__.py
@@ -0,0 +1,19 @@
+#
+# Copyright 2012 Intel Corp.
+#
+# Licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the "License"); you may
+# not use this file except in compliance with the License. You may obtain
+# a copy of the License at
+#
+#      http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0
+#
+# Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software
+# distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS, WITHOUT
+# WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied. See the
+# License for the specific language governing permissions and limitations
+# under the License.
+#
+
+import gettext
+
+gettext.install('ceilometer', unicode=1)
diff --git a/ceilometer/locale/ceilometer.pot b/ceilometer/locale/ceilometer.pot
new file mode 100644
index 00000000..e69de29b
diff --git a/setup.cfg b/setup.cfg
index d8b5960b..68f85d6a 100644
--- a/setup.cfg
+++ b/setup.cfg
@@ -11,3 +11,17 @@ where=tests
 all_files = 1
 build-dir = doc/build
 source-dir = doc/source
+
+[extract_messages]
+keywords = _ gettext ngettext l_ lazy_gettext
+mapping_file = babel.cfg
+output_file = ceilometer/locale/ceilometer.pot
+
+[compile_catalog]
+directory = ceilometer/locale
+domain = ceilometer
+
+[update_catalog]
+domain = ceilometer
+output_dir = ceilometer/locale
+input_file = ceilometer/locale/ceilometer.pot
diff --git a/tools/test-requires b/tools/test-requires
index 607a005c..b577956c 100644
--- a/tools/test-requires
+++ b/tools/test-requires
@@ -3,6 +3,7 @@ coverage
 pep8>=1.0
 mock
 mox
+Babel>=0.9.6
 # NOTE(dhellmann): Ming is necessary to provide the Mongo-in-memory
 # implementation of MongoDB. The original source for Ming is at
 # http://sourceforge.net/project/merciless but there does not seem to