.citic

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Status:	Delegated
Registry Provider:	CITIC Group Corporation
Type:	Brand TLD
Priority #:	699 - CITIC Group Corporation

.citic is a Brand TLD that was proposed in ICANN's New gTLD Program. The applicant and now Registry Operator is CITIC Group Corporation. Their application succeeded and was delegated to the Root Zone on 29 April 2014.

Application Details

The following is excerpted from the applicant's response to question #18:

"Approved by the State Council, CITIC Group has transformed into a wholly state-owned company through comprehensive restructuring and changed its name to CITIC Group Corporation (“CITIC Group”), with RMB 183.70263 billion as the registered capital and Mr. Chang Zhenming as the legal representative. CITIC Group was established in 1979 by Comrade Rong Yiren with the initiation and support by Comrade Deng Xiaoping. Since its inception, CITIC Group Corporation has given full play to the role of a pilot of national economic reform and an important window on China’s opening to the outside world and made explorations and innovation in many business fields with remarkable success. It has blazed a new trail of development for China’s “Reform and Opening-up” as well as the “Modernization Drive” by attracting and utilizing foreign capital, introducing advanced technologies, and adopting advanced and scientific international practice in operation and management thus building up good reputation and image both home and abroad with a remarkable performance. Up to now, CITIC Group has developed into a large state-owned multinational conglomerate with a balanced development of both financial and non-financial businesses. Its financial business covers a full range of services including commercial banking, investment banking, trust, insurance, fund management and asset management and its non-financial business includes real estate, engineering contracting, energy and resources, infrastructure construction, machinery manufacturing and IT industry with clear overall strength and great momentum of development. At the end of 2010, CITIC Group’s total assets stood at RMB 2539.1 billion, net assets RMB 172.5 billion, operating income RMB 263.9 billion and net profit RMB 33.4 billion. CITIC Group was enlisted in the Fortune Global 500 for the third consecutive year in 2011, ranking the 221st. On the financial services side, CITIC Group drove business collaboration among its financial affiliates and upgraded its shared information platform. Fully capitalizing on this synergy, the affiliates registered new progress in co-underwriting, cross product design and client information sharing, and the Group further secured its position as an integrated financial service provider. As of the end of 2010, total assets of CITIC Group’s financial services stood at RMB 2.0958 trillion (US$329 Billion), an increase of 16% year on year (yoy), and total profit RMB 34.5 billion (US$5.43 Billion).

With regards to the non-financial business side, total assets of CITIC Group’s non-financial business stood at RMB 410.2 billion (US$64.6 Billion), an increase of 23.9% yoy, operating income in 2010 RMB 191.7 billion (US$30.19 Billion), up 38.8% yoy, and total profit RMB 19.2 billion (US$3.02 Billion), up 62.1% yoy.

Globally, the headcount for CITIC Group, as of the end of 2010, stood at 140,028. Moving forward, CITIC Group will carry out the development agenda for the next five-year period, embracing a client-centered business philosophy, and promoting overarching restructuring. New models of management and control will be explored, and key investments and projects conducted. More efforts shall be made in business and investment management as well as risk control. Tapping into its comprehensive advantage and synergy, the Group is expected to breakthrough in scientific development, and will continue to strive to be a world-renowned conglomerate that enjoys prominent overall strength, excellence in various sectors and market competitiveness.

CITIC Group is applying for “.citic” Top Level Domain (“applied-for TLD”) which is the commonly known shortened English name for CITIC Group.

The vision for the applied for gTLD “.citic” is to become the online brand for this Global Fortune 500 conglomerates. Through this gTLD, CITIC Group will be able to protect its brand and deliver the right impression and message to the end users, thus becoming the brand protection and brand building mechanism that the conglomerate deserves to have in this modern age of the internet. Furthermore, “.citic” will have a multiplier effect on CITIC Group’s efforts to expand and promote its range of businesses globally.

Currently, CITIC Group has over 30 million clients worldwide, which would drive traffic and recognition of the “.citic” domain when it is launched globally. This would also help accelerate the acceptance of “.citic” domain, and create a new market for these users that would like to have their own “.citic” domain name if and when CITIC Group decides to open it up to them. By offering customized “.citic” personal domain names and services like homepages, email accounts and applications, its multitude of clients, internal employees and business partners, CITIC Group can increase and improve these relevant parties’ trust and relationship with itself. This creates a virtuous cycle whereby CITIC Group can observe that its brand equity will increase through the usage of “.citic” domain names. By the third year, CITIC Group expects “.citic” to have about 10,000 domain names at a wholesale price of RMB 388 (US$61.10) per domain per year.

CITIC Group will place stringent registration policy for “. citic” domain names. All applications for domain names under “. citic” must have a supporting letter executed by the CITIC Group’s legal department prior to any registration. In the supporting letter, it will clearly indicate • the domain name under “. citic” for which it is been approved • the purpose of the domain name • the registrant, administrative and technical contact for the domain name

CITIC Group will reject any domain name registration without the supporting letter. Registrars will all be instructed of the additional requirements."

Contract Signed

On 09 January 2014 CITIC Group Corporation received a Registry Agreement signed by ICANN for .citic after passing all the required processes needed to become a Registry Operator for the string.

Delegation and Availability

.citic was delegated to the Root Zone of the DNS on 29 April, 2014, completing the successful application for the string.