HONG KONG, 28 May 2004 – Hong Kong Internet Registration Corporation Limited (‘HKIRC') and its wholly owned subsidiary Hong Kong Domain Name Registration Company Limited (‘HKDNR') jointly announced today Second Level ‘.hk' Domain Name will be officially launched at 12:00 noon, 31 May 2004. Second-Level '.hk' domain name ('2LD') refers to the new domain name category (e.g. 'myname.hk') which is shorter as compared to the existing 3rd Level categories (e.g. 'myname.com.hk').

In anticipation of strong interest, the two-week period from 12 p.m. noon on 17th May to 5:30 p.m. on 28th May 2004 has been scheduled as a special ‘Sunrise

' Period open to the public for registration. During the Sunrise Period, all applications will be collected and processed together in a batch. Where there are two or more applicants for the same Second Level domain name, a random selection will be conducted to allocate the Second Level Domain Name. Results of the selection will be posted on HKIRC web site at http://www.hkirc.hk/. Random selection ceremony of Second Level ‘.hk' domain name applications will be held at 3:00p.m., 29 May 2004 (Sat) at the City University of Hong Kong. We are honored to have the presence of Hon. SIN Chung-kai, Legislative Councilor of HKSAR and Dr. Victor HUNG, Chief Trade Practices Officer of Consumer Council as our honorable guests.

About HKIRC

Hong Kong Internet Registration Cooperation Limited (‘HKIRC') was established as a non-profit-making and non-statutory organization to oversee the administration and assignment of the country-code top level domain (ccTLD), ‘.hk', for Hong Kong. In addition, HKIRC represents Hong Kong in international internet forums and plays a key role in facilitating Hong Kong's e-business development.

About HKDNR

Hong Kong Domain Name Registration Company Limited (‘HKDNR') is a wholly owned subsidiary of HKIRC. As the operating arm of HKIRC, HKDNR assumes the responsibility of registration and assignment of Internet domain names ending with ‘.com.hk', ‘.org.hk', ‘.net.hk', ‘.edu.hk', ‘.gov.hk' , ‘.idv.hk' as well as the new category ‘.hk' and any other Domains to be introduced from time to time in Hong Kong.