Registry Detail

1159

Proposal

14 February 2001

ISIC changes for ICT sector

OECD drew the group's attention to the current ICT activity definition, which was de facto whole classes but some classes such as 3130 Cables and 5150 Wholesale of machinery were problematic and only a part of the activity could be regarded as ICT. WPIIS had agreed to review the ICT list of ISIC classes and comments had been sought by end-July 2000 so that the OECD secretariat could prepare proposals for any changes. Definition to be agreed was expected early in 2001. To be able to present an ICT sector asan alternate aggregate in ISIC, some classes of ISIC may have to be split.

The Subgroup considered the OECD/ICT wholesale proposal for 5150 to broken into 3 classes (see paper TSG/11). It was also noted that the US NAICS is not consistent with Canada and Mexico in this area. Only merchant wholesalers are in and wholesale agents and brokers are out. This was the same in NACE. All agents and brokers are elsewhere in NACE and NAICS. Europe has 2 CPA classes that are similar to the proposals for a and b but are not so well defined. Final status of ICT definition needs to be confirmed Q: Why not do it for manufacturing and retailing? In retailing it is probably more difficult to separate out the relevant activity and it is less useful. The TSG agreed it was more difficult for the other industries. In theory it is possible to extract specialised stores. OECD may consider submitting parallel proposals for manufacturing and retailing for 2007. Q: Similar treatment for the other 5 wholesales categories in ISIC? TSG agreed that other changes were not essential. UNSD will provide explanatory notes for the three new ISIC classes 5151 (Wholesale of computers), 5152 (Wholesale of electronic components) and 5159 (Wholesale of other machinery and equipment).