Dubai: .امارات (.emarat) is the new non-English top-level domain name for the United Arab Emirates.

Ushering in a new era of Arab internet identity across the UAE and beyond, the alternative domain name was approved earlier this month by the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, said Rod Beckstrom, ICAAN President and Chief Executive Officer.

“This will open to the door to the Internet to Arabic and Russian speakers who may have never been online before,” said Beckstrom, in a statement from Washington.

Beckstrom said the decision “means that, for the first time, we will see non-Latin characters, specifically Arabic and Cyrillic, in an entire Internet address name.”

The not-for-profit body governs the assignment of top-level domain names such as .com, .net, .org and .mobi and gave its final approval to the domain request by the UAE Telecommunications Regulatory earlier this month.

Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Russia were also given the green light to use non-English domain names.

According to minutes of the ICANN board obtained by Gulf News, the board approved the request noting that “.emarat is a string that has been deemed to appropriately represent the United Arab Emirates.”

The board said it “reviewed the request and has determined that the proposed delegation would be in the interests of the local and global internet communities.”

As of press time, officials with TRA couldn’t be reached for comment.

However, in a statement late last year, the authority said that the “Ministerial Council for Services has previously approved the usage of .emarat as a domain name for UAE in Arabic” prior to applying to the ICANN board.

Mohamed Naser Al Ghanim, TRA Director General, said in the statement that the new Arabic domain name would bring a sense of well-being to the country.

“Our objective is to support Arabic content over the internet and build a strong identity for UAE and Arab countries across the World Wide Web,” he said. “We encourage all companies and entities in the UAE to register for .ae and .امارات (.emarat) as it represents their local business identity and brings their country pride.”

Mohammed Gheyath, Executive Director of Technology Development Affairs said in the TRA advisory that “our systems have been upgraded to handle the registration of .emarat, the Arabic domain name of UAE. Our goal is to become the first Arab country to introduce an Arabic name.”

He said that the new Arabic domain name should “is expected in the Q2 2010.”

The new UAE domain name “is a milestone in the development of the Internet,” said Tina Dam, Senior Director of ICAAN’s international domain name program.

“The Board’s approval means these addresses should be available to users in the four countries very soon.”