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28 May 2002

ISIC 4 questionnaire - Summary of responses B2

For each of these issues, please provide your views concerning the importance and relevance of the issue. Please add any other structural and conceptual issues you would like to see addressed in the revision. B. Cross-cutting issues Cross-cutting issues are issues that affect many parts of the classification. They concern economic activities that are spread throughout the economy. 2. How should repair and maintenance activities be treated? They are currently mainly included in the manufacturing sector in ISIC but are in a separate sub-sector in NAICS.

38 countries have provided a response to this question. A slight majority favored combining repair and maintenance activities in a separate category, preferably at the division level, in a future ISIC. 19 countries suggested treating these activities separately, including 5 countries that explicitly requested to follow the NAICS model for this. Other approaches for the separate treatment suggested having this as a subcategory of a high-level category "trade and repair". While 10 of the remaining countries recommended maintaining the current ISIC approach, 5 more countries suggested treatments that were in fact compatible with the current ISIC treatment. This would practically place repair of machinery in manufacturing, repair of household goods and motor vehicles in trade and repair of computer equipment in computer services. Another argument for the separate treatment is the existence or absence of distribution channels. Some of these countries suggested that within these broad categories, the repair services be recognized in separate categories at the detailed level, which essentially would allow an alternate aggregation for repair and maintenance. One country suggested having a higher-level category for repair and maintenance, but leaving the elaboration of detail in this area to the CPC. Another country suggested an alternate approach: classifying repair and maintenance according to the user, essentially linking repairs for businesses to ISIC 74 (business services) and repairs for households to ISIC 93 (personal services). The 4 remaining countries did not take a strong position on this issue.