Dubai Electricity & Water Authority | DEWA books its Arabic internet domain within Emarat

Dubai Electricity & Water Authority (DEWA) booked six Arabic domains for its official website within the internet domain of the United Arab Emirates in Arabic language “.Emarat”, to be the first government department to use the Arabic domain. These domains will be activated very shortly enabling the possibility to write e-mail addresses in Arabic language for the first time, as well as doing all correspondence in Arabic without any need for English keyboards. H.E. Saeed Mohammed Al Tayer MD & CEO of DEWA stated: “The Arabic domain emphasizes DEWA’s vision which embodies pioneering and excellent services. It also reflects DEWA’s relentless efforts to apply the best state-of-the-art practices and systems to provide government services with the highest standards and excellence that come in line with Dubai’s strategic plan 2015 and its objectives for building a knowledge-based economy”. “This remarkable achievement reflects the vision of His Highness Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum UAE Vice President and Prime Minister and Ruler of Dubai to promote the Arabic language, and reaffirms the UAE’s deep-rooted Arab identity. It sheds the light on UAE’s continuous efforts to encourage all initiatives that can leverage the value of Arabic Language giving it a strong impetus and support” H.E. explained. This step taken by DEWA comes after the Telecommunication Regulatory Authority (TRA) success with the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers' (ICANN's) in approving the string (.Emarat) as the official Arabic top level domain for the United Arab Emirates. With this achievement, the UAE became one of the first four countries in the world to use domain names in their official languages and not in Roman script, reinforcing the country’s leading position in the Internet and Information and Communication Technology sectors. The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) has recently approved Arabic language, as the first language in the world that does not required Latin scripts to be used in writing domain names. Arabic is the seventh most popular language in the world in terms of web use, and it is the fastest growing language in terms of size of content compared to other languages with 60 million Arab internet users. DEWA launched its website in 1998 and is considered one of the most distinguished government websites as it has won several awards including the 5th Middle East Award for Government and e-services by the Middle East Excellence Awards Institute, and the Arab e-Government Award for the Optical Creativity Category by the Pan Arab Web Awards Academy in association with the Arab Administrative Development Organization and the Best e-Service Award for e-pay system of bills by the GCC e-Government Awards. DEWA provides online 118 e-services covering several interactive, informative and procedural types around the clock. DEWA’s website receives approximately 434801 visitors per month at the rate of 14295 visits per day. In 2009, number of visitors exceeded more than 27% reaching 2.17 million visits compared with 1.7 million visits in 2008.