The Nigeria Internet Registration Association (NIRA), on Monday said it registered 2,688 dotng (.ng) domain names in the month of May.

Mr Sunday Folayan, the President of the Association made the declaration in a statement.

According to the statement, there was an increase of 252 .ng registered domain names in May, when compared to the 2,436 registered in April.

The statement said that 1,523 domain names were renewed in May - a decrease of 262 renewals when compared to the 1,785 renewed in the month of April.

It said that the association transferred 77 domain names, showing a decrease of 57, compared to the 134 transferred in April.

"The domain name registration in May was high compared to the registrations in the past three months of this year. The renewal rate also showed slight fluctuation in the past three months.

"The total number of domain names registration from January to May 2016 is 12,199 registrations and 7,585 renewals.

"It is interesting and refreshing to witness such growth. The renewal rate is encouraging as well, even with the fluctuation,'' the statement said.

It said that .ng (like our currency, the Naira and the +234 for country code) was the official Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), approved country code Top Level Domain (ccTLD) for Nigeria.

The statement said that the availability of names was better on the .ng ccTLD than on the generic top-level domain (gTLD) like .com, .org.

It said that with the .ng, the country's primary DNS servers were secured and locally-managed with multiple cast servers located around the world.

The statement said that hosting businesses on the .ng would help to support the Nigerian economy and provide jobs for local Information Technology (IT) professionals.