International Standard Industrial Classification of All Economic Activities (ISIC), Revision 4 274 A. Two alternative aggregations for SNA data reporting 203. ISIC, Rev.4 provides a top-level of 21 sections and a second level of 88 divisions. National accountants have identified a need for an additional standard ISIC aggregation above the section level of ISIC for summary data reporting by activity in SNA. Such a high-level aggregation of 10 categories has been agreed within the updat- ing process of the SNA. In addition, an intermediate-level aggregation of 38 categories has been agreed that would be suitable for SNA data reporting from a wide range of countries. The structure of these two SNA/ISIC aggregations, which are, respectively, also denoted as A10 and A38, is set out below. 1. High-level SNA/ISIC aggregation 204. In developing any activity aggregation, various criteria are possible for grouping activities. For instance, there is a need of international comparability among a broad range of economies. There also is a general interest in distinguishing the various stages of production, from production of raw materials to processed goods, separately from the services producing activities. In addition, there is interest in distinguishing market production, non-market production and production for own final use. Splitting production into stages is followed in general terms but cannot be achieved completely within the ISIC framework. As for non-market production, this involves different activ- ities in different countries and over time, which makes an alternative aggregation of ISIC activities for this purpose difficult to achieve. The high-level A10 aggregation, which is principally a grouping of ISIC, Rev.4 sections, is set out in table 4.1. Table 4.1 High-level SNA/ISIC aggregation (A10) ISIC, Rev.4 sections Description 1 A Agriculture, forestry and fishing 2 B, C, D and E Manufacturing, mining and quarrying and other industrial activities 2 a C Of which: manufacturing 3 F Construction 4 G, H and I Wholesale and retail trade, transportation and storage, accommodation and food service activities 5 J Information and communication 6 K Financial and insurance activities 7 L Real estate activities a 8 M and N Professional, scientific, technical, administrative and support service activities 9 O, P, and Q Public administration and defence, education, human health and social work activities 10 R, S, T and U Other service activities a of which imputed rental services of owner-occupied dwellings. 205. For the purpose of productivity analysis, imputed rental services of owner-occupied dwellings is often excluded from statistics by economic activity. Owner-occupied housing services fall, however, within the production boundary of the SNA, and are therefore included in section L (Real estate activities) of the A*10 and
Alternative aggregations 275 A38 aggregations. Their values have to be imputed since these services are not for sale on the market. For this reason and because there is no corresponding labour input in the accounts, many analysts prefer to exclude imputed rental services when deriving productivity statistics. 206. Productivity analysts and others may wish to exclude non-market pro- duction from their statistics and focus on the corporate sector, which varies from one economy to another. It may also be possible to group those activities that are mostly, or at least partly, non-market activities, such as public administration, education, health and social welfare. 207. For the purpose of short-term economic analysis and the reporting of quarterly national accounts, it may be desirable to group together, to the extent pos- sible, activities that have a similar business cycle. 208. There is a strong interest in the continuity of long time series for ana- lytical purposes. With the previous version of ISIC (i.e., ISIC, Rev.3.1), a number of standard aggregations of ISIC were used for national accounts data reporting in SNA questionnaires. ISIC, Rev.4 includes some major changes from ISIC, Rev.3.1, with the priority given to increased international comparability and relevance. The scope for maintaining continuity is consequently limited but still exists in many parts of the classification. 2. Intermediate-level SNA/ISIC aggregation 209. A standard intermediate-level aggregation of 38 ISIC categories for inter- nationally comparable SNA data reporting, was agreed in the SNA updating proc- ess. These categories represent an aggregation level between the 21 ISIC sections and the 88 ISIC divisions. The intermediate-level A38 aggregation is set out in table 4.2, showing its relationship to ISIC, Rev.4 divisions. Table 4.2 Intermediate SNA/ISIC aggregation (A38) A38 code Description ISIC, Rev.4 code 1 A Agriculture, forestry and fishing 01 to 03 2 B Mining and quarrying 05 to 09 3 CA Manufacture of food products, beverages and tobacco products 10 to 12 4 CB Manufacture of textiles, wearing apparel, leather and related products 13 to 15 5 CC Manufacture of wood and paper products; printing and reproduction of recorded media 16 to 18 6 CD Manufacture of coke and refined petroleum products 19 7 CE Manufacture of chemicals and chemical products 20 8 CF Manufacture of basic pharmaceutical products and pharmaceutical preparations 21 9 CG Manufacture of rubber and plastics products, and other non-metallic mineral products 22 + 23 10 CH Manufacture of basic metals and fabricated metal products, except machinery and equipment 24 + 25 11 CI Manufacture of computer, electronic and optical products 26 12 CJ Manufacture of electrical equipment 27 13 CK Manufacture of machinery and equipment n.e.c. 28 14 CL Manufacture of transport equipment 29 + 30 15 CM Other manufacturing; repair and installation of machinery and equipment 31 to 33
International Standard Industrial Classification of All Economic Activities (ISIC), Revision 4 276 A38 code Description ISIC, Rev.4 code 16 D Electricity, gas, steam and air conditioning supply 35 17 E Water supply; sewerage, waste management and remediation 36 to 39 18 F Construction 41 to 43 19 G Wholesale and retail trade; repair of motor vehicles and motorcycles 45 to 47 20 H Transportation and storage 49 to 53 21 I Accommodation and food service activities 55 + 56 22 JA Publishing, audiovisual and broadcasting activities 58 to 60 23 JB Telecommunications 61 24 JC IT and other information services 62 + 63 25 K Financial and insurance activities 64 to 66 26 L Real estate activitiesa 68 27 MA Legal, accounting, management, architecture, engineering, technical testing and analysis activities 69 to 71 28 MB Scientific research and development 72 29 MC Other professional, scientific and technical activities 73 to 75 30 N Administrative and support service activities 77 to 82 31 O Public administration and defence; compulsory social security 84 32 P Education 85 33 QA Human health activities 86 34 QB Residential care and social work activities 87 + 88 35 R Arts, entertainment and recreation 90 to 93 36 S Other service activities 94 to 96 37 T b Activities of households as employers; undifferentiated goods- and services-producing activities of households for own use 97 + 98 b 38 U c Activities of extraterritorial organizations and bodies 99 c a Of which imputed rental services of owner-occupied dwellings. b The services producing activities of households in division 98 are outside the SNA production boundary. c The activities of these institutions are not included in the activities reported by the countries in which they are located. 210. This aggregation takes into account the demand for preservation of conti- nuity, albeit limited given the degree of change in ISIC, Rev.4. 211. This A38 aggregation for SNA data reporting breaks out in some detail what is in most relatively developed economies the largest ISIC, Rev.4 section, namely section C (Manufacturing). It also breaks out further some of the service activities, where they are seen as particularly important or different or of sufficient policy inter- est. ISIC, Rev.4 elaborates the classification of information- and communication- related activities and service activities in general and the A*38 aggregation reflects this change in allocating 20 out of 38 categories for service activities. Nonetheless, it was considered important to maintain a reasonable level of disaggregation in manufactur- ing for three reasons: (a) Data for manufacturing output, including volume data, remain more com- parable internationally, more robust and more analytically usable than services output data; (b) Data giving a good representation of primary and secondary industries will have a wider relevance and comparability among countries at different levels of devel- opment;
Alternative aggregations 277 (c) A reasonable number of time series can be preserved despite the rather radical changes in ISIC, Rev.4. 212. The manufacturing section in ISIC, Rev.4 differs in its overall content from that in ISIC, Rev.3.1. Publishing has been moved from manufacturing to sec- tion J (Information and communication). Materials recovery / recycling has been moved from manufacturing to the environment-related section E, specifically to the division entitled “Waste management and remediation activities”. These changes are described in greater detail in part five of the present publication. 213. The divisions that include the manufacture of pharmaceuticals, comput- ers and electronic equipment, and electrical equipment were considered to have a high policy interest from high-technology and information and communication technol- ogy (ICT) perspectives and are separately identified in this intermediate aggregation. 214. Section J (Information and communication) has been split because of the extremely high and continuing policy interest in this area worldwide. Telecommunica- tions activities are, at the time of writing, one of the fastest growing activities in most countries and are likely to be a focus of attention for many years to come. The bounda- ries between telecommunications, broadcasting, Internet and IT services are likely to remain in a state of flux for some time and new technological developments are likely to continue; thus section J might become difficult to split in the future or might have to be split differently. The recommended split allows an approximate intermediate-level ICT grouping as well as better identification of information content activities. 215. Real estate activities are isolated in section L, which as explained above is potentially useful for productivity analysis, although the imputed rental services of owner-occupied dwellings component should ideally be split out. 216. Finally, human health activities are split out because of their size and the high policy interest in health activities, including a knowledge economy interest. Vet- erinary activities have been separated from human health activities and moved to sec- tion M (Professional, scientific and technical services). B. Alternative aggregation for the information economy 217. In recent years, there has been a growing demand for data related to the information economy, that is, information and communication technologies (ICT) and so-called “content”. While all activities related to the information economy have been described by, or been part of, ISIC classes in a number of ISIC divisions, the interpretation of classes belonging to the information economy and its boundaries have been subject to discussion. The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) has taken a leading role in standardizing the definition of the ICT and “content” sectors. Previously used definitions have been reviewed by the Working Party on Indicators for the Information Society and new recommendations have been developed using the extended detail available in ISIC, Rev.4.29 The tables set out below are consistent with the recommendations made by the Working Party. 1. ICT sector definition 218. The definition of this sector provides a statistical basis for the measure- ment, in an internationally comparable way, of that part of economic activity that is generated by the production of ICT goods and services. 29 See Information Economy – Sector Definitions based on the International Standard Industry Classification (ISIC 4), OECD document DSTI/ICCP/IIS(2006)2/ FINAL.
International Standard Industrial Classification of All Economic Activities (ISIC), Revision 4 278 219. The following general principle (definition) is used to identify ICT eco- nomic activities (industries): “The production (goods and services) of a candidate industry must prima- rily be intended to fulfill or enable the function of information processing and communication by electronic means, including transmission and display”. 220. The activities (industries) in the ICT sector can be grouped into ICT manufacturing industries, ICT trade industries and ICT services industries. The ISIC, Rev.4 industries that comply with the above definition are provided in table 4.3. Table 4.3 ICT sector ICT manufacturing industries 2610 Manufacture of electronic components and boards 2620 Manufacture of computers and peripheral equipment 2630 Manufacture of communication equipment 2640 Manufacture of consumer electronics 2680 Manufacture of magnetic and optical media ICT trade industries 4651 Wholesale of computers, computer peripheral equipment and software 4652 Wholesale of electronic and telecommunications equipment and parts ICT services industries 5820 Software publishing 61 Telecommunications 6110 Wired telecommunications activities 6120 Wireless telecommunications activities 6130 Satellite telecommunications activities 6190 Other telecommunications activities 62 Computer programming, consultancy and related activities 6201 Computer programming activities 6202 Computer consultancy and computer facilities management activities 6209 Other information technology and computer service activities 631 Data processing, hosting and related activities; web portals 6311 Data processing, hosting and related activities 6312 Web portals 951 Repair of computers and communication equipment 9511 Repair of computers and peripheral equipment 9512 Repair of communication equipment