Domain names in Chinese for the Hong Kong IDN .香港 are now available the Hong Kong Internet Registration Corporation Limited (HKIRC) has announced. The registry says this means that all registrants can now register a pair of English .HK and Chinese .香港domain names.

“Taking the positive response already received during the half-month soft launch period as an indication, public registration will bring substantial benefits in terms of registered trademark protection, online brand awareness and expansion to the Chinese-speaking market. This is truly a milestone for Hong Kong’s Internet development,” said Mr Jonathan Shea, CEO of HKIRC.

The introduction of .香港 empowers the use of easy-to-remember and easy-to-understand Chinese words as the domain names for websites. Netizens can type Chinese .香港 domain names in the Internet address bar directly for website browsing. Chinese-speaking Internet users can access the web much easier, hence opening up huge potential market opportunities. With support for both simplified and traditional Chinese characters, .香港substantively popularises the use of the Internet.

For business users who have well-established Chinese brand names, such as 白蘭氏.香港 (brandsworld.hk) and梁蘇記.公司.香港 (leungsokee.com.hk), it would be more convenient for users to search for their sites in Chinese than to remember the sometimes meaningless transliterated names based on Chinese pronunciation. Moreover, the Chinese language has a much larger pool of characters than English. Hence, more creative combinations are possible when you consider a domain name in Chinese rather than English. Duplication of names can be minimised at the same time.

The Chinese .香港 domain name is now open for public registration on a first-come, first-served basis. In keeping with the bilingual culture of Hong, registrations for a Chinese .香港 domain and an English .hk domain name of the same category will cost the price of one. This effectively halves the prices of .hk and .香港 domain names.