Premier pushes for new domain names for NSW

Premier pushes for dot Sydney to continue NSW IT lead

22 June 2009

Premier Nathan Rees today told a global information technology conference that the NSW Government would support the creation of new domain names including dot Sydney (.sydney).

The support was made during the Premier’s opening speech at 35th International Public Meeting of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN).

“Securing this international meeting in Sydney reaffirms our position as the digital gateway to Australia,” said Mr Rees.

“Over five days we are hosting 1,500 participants including 80 governments, IT policy makers and some of the inventors of the internet.

“A major topic at the conference is new generic top level domains or gtlds.

“NSW supports the idea of registering geographic and city names such as dot sydney, dot berlin or dot london.

“These measures help promote our cities as destinations for business and tourism.

“While this is good news for our tourism and hospitality sectors, it is a boon for making our IT industry even stronger.

“We have directly supported ICANN to set up an office in Sydney through the work of the NSW Department of State and Regional Development.

“I am committed to expanding our industry and seeing us improve on our already significant standing of 11th largest ICT market in the world.

“It is a thriving sector worth $31 billion and employing more than 160,000 people.

“NSW is proud of our stake in this fast growing industry with 76 percent of the nation’s overseas ICT companies such as Microsoft and Google based in Sydney,” said Mr Rees.

Our plans include:

  • Promoting NSW as a competitive leader in ICT, undertaking targeted overseas business missions and supporting major international ICT tradeshows such as CeBIT Australia, CommunicAsia and NASSCOM Leaders Forum.
  • Strengthening our ICT industry’s global reach through programs including the Australian Technology Showcase and Exporters Network.
  • Nurturing new ICT products and services by supporting leading research organisations linked to government and industry.
  • Working with major ICT companies such as IBM, Fuji Xerox, Polaris Software, Wipro (WHIPPRO), Team Bondi and Accenture to grow their operations and attract new high-value services to NSW.