DNS.be,the company behind .de domain names,announced recently that the Flemish government has assigned the concession of the .Vlaanderen gTLD to them.

You can read the announcement after the jump :

“Today the Flemish government assigned the concession of the gTLD (generic Top Level Domain) .vlaanderen to DNS.be
By managing the .vlaanderen domain names DNS.be aims to reinforce its mission to make the internet more accessible and to encourage its use.
With its 1,25 million .be domain names DNS.be becomes the partner of the Flemish government that aims to give citizens, companies and organisations the opportunity to link with Flanders by registering their name or label.

DNS.be will draw up and submit the application for ICANN (Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers), as well as manage the technical and commercial exploitation during 10 years.

A concession of services is the formula which was chosen for this partnership.
The timing ICANN proposes to process all applications, will determine when the reservation of a .vlaanderen domain name will be possible.”