The unique country Liechtenstein represents one of the most amazing states across the whole world, that’s being a doubly landlocked alpine microstate in Western Europe occupies an area of just 61.7 square miles (about 160 km²) and has an estimated population of only 35,000. Liechtenstein is also the smallest German-speaking country in the world, and the only alpine country to lie entirely within the Alps. It is also the only German-speaking country not to share a common frontier with Germany. The country has a strong financial sector located in the capital, Vaduz, and has been identified as an offshore and tax haven. Liechtenstein, moreover, is the richest country in the world on a per-capita basis. Though the country is a member of the European Free Trade Association, it’s still not a member of the European Union.

Lichtenstein has relatively high developed Internet and Communication technologies industry, including broadband and e-commerce sectors, mainly due to country’s economic policy that encourages information technology operations. Thus, sophisticated Internet and e-commerce sector determines country’s making-up as a successful offshore jurisdiction.
Country’s telecommunication sector is connected to the Swiss one mostly via cable and microwave radio relay systems. There are 44 ISPs in Liechtenstein, like Telecom Liechtenstein AG, combined with Switzerland’s operators.

Telecom Liechtenstein is the largest telecommunications company in the country. Other major ISPs include .com.li, Creativemedia AG and EUnet AG. isp.thelist.com also offers Dialer.net that delivers dial-up, DSL and wireless connection.

Rapid development of ICT infrastructure in the country is reflected by the Internet users’ volume growth. Thus, if in 2000 it was only about 28% of people linked to the web, by the end of 2009 the amount of users surged to over 66% with 20,000 actively applying to the Internet.

Country’s Internet code top-level domain (or ccTLD) is .li established in 1993. Two years registration agreement, according to www.rwgusa.com, is $199. .li domain is sponsored and administered by the Fachhochschule Liechtenstein (University of Applied Sciences of Liechtenstein) in Vaduz. Meantime, domain names with the extension can also be registered with SWITCH, Swiss .ch ccTLD administrator.

As the registry for domain names in Lichtenstein are ending in .ch or .li, SWITCH has been providing top-grade services ever since the beginning of the internet in Switzerland. SWITCH claims it’s registering and administering ch and .li domain names correctly and reliably on behalf of the Swiss Federal Office of Communication (OFCOM) and the Liechtenstein Office of Telecommunications (AK).

There are no any special requirements to apply for the extension. Registrations of internationalized domain names have been accepted since 2004.

Meantime, a lot of Long Island, New York organizations and companies have adopted the .li TLD as a domain hack, an unconventional domain name that combines domain levels, especially the TLD, to spell out the full "name" or title of the domain, like well-known blo.gs, del.icio.us, and cr.yp.to.

Like other Internet developed countries, Lichtenstein can boast about launching e-Government Internet Portal known officially as National Administration Portal of Liechtenstein (or LLV eGovernment Portal), presented in 2002 by the Government and the Princely House. The website was designed to be a common internet platform for the Princely House and the State, Economy, Culture, Sports, and Tourism departments of the Government.

The national Administration Portal of Leichtenstein represents the central instrument in the eGovernment process of the country’s activity. It provides eServices for citizens and enterprises. The portal, www.liechtenstein.li,comprises three main sections:

• Life topics, where information is presented structured around life events.
• Public Authorities that contains detailed information on role and responsibilities of individual public authorities.
• On-line counter that contains downloadable forms to be completed and manually submitted to the relevant public authorities.

The LLV portal also offers a broad range of online applications. The most popular applications, including business names index for enterprises, Geospatial Data Infrastructure (GDI), tax declaration, online calculator for price increase estimation, report and application service.

By locating websites in Liechtenstein offshore jurisdictions to carry out functions previously based in high-tax jurisdictions like sales and marketing, treasury management, supply of financial services, and most of all, the supply of digital goods such as music, video, training, software etc, businesses and enterprises can get benefits from low rates of taxation for increasingly substantial parts of their operation.

When it comes to considering the future of Liechtenstein as an e-commerce centre, however, the position is not as simple as it is for out-and-out offshore jurisdictions, because the 'offshore' or 'low-tax' sector of the Liechtenstein economy, based on the 'holding' and 'domiciliary' company status, and on the special corporate forms of the establishment and the foundation, sits within a normal, moderately-taxed. In fact, as the lowtax.net portal claims, most of the low-tax forms are specifically prohibited from local commercial and business activity, allowing only the holding of investments and related financial activity. It’s still not quite clear whether processing of international sales and distribution activity through a local server would be permitted to domiciliary companies - perhaps so, in which case Liechtenstein would be a favorable location for such businesses.

Lichtenstein’s offshore jurisdiction, claiming to be an international tax haven, can boast about tens of thousands of enterprises already registered and operating successfully, including many collective investment funds, banks and other financial institutions. The country's geographical location, its good ICT links and its sophisticated business infrastructure strengthened its suitability as an e-ntrepot. All this will let Liechtenstein become one of the centres of e-commerce activity in the nearest future.