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21 June 2005

2003 quest. - Summary of question 09 responses

Question 09 from the "questions" document: Do you support the creation of an aggregated top-level of about 10 categories? Should such a top-level become official part of the classification? -see section II of the ISIC structure draft

Summary of responses to question 09 The question received 49 answers: 45 from countries and 4 from international organisations (Eurostat, ILO, OECD, Afristat). 44 answers support the creation of a top level of categories, 3 are aginst the proposal (Australia, Colombia, Honduras). 2 do not express a clear opinion (UK, Portugal). The main reson for supporting the proposal is the link to National Accounts. It's quite problematic to summarize the answers to the second question, as it seems that there was quite a confusion between "official part of the classification" and "included in the coding system". Whilst some countries explicitly made such a distinction, others did not. However, the answers can be summarized according to the 4 following groups: * "Outside the coding system": 4 answers (Austria, Brazil, Estonia, Finland, India). * "Excluded from the official structure": 5 answers (Canada, Japan, Mexico, Switzerland, US). * "Integral part of the regular structure of classification": 6 answers (Belgium, Bulgaria, Germany, Hungary, OECD). * "Official part of the classification": 18 answers (Croatia, Denmark, France, Indonesia, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Romania, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, UK, Vietnam, Eurostat). Several countries (Austria, Brazil, Estonia, India, Italy, Lithuania, Poland, Romania) mention eyplicitly their concerns about the coding system, which should not exceed the 4 digits. Finland proposes the use of Roman numbers. 15 countries (Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, Finland, France, Hungary, Ireland, Latvia, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Poland, Spain, Eurostat; partially UK and Afristat) support the European proposal of high aggregation at 11 items as a starting point of the discussion. Czech Republik and Mexico propose other structures. Specific comments are presented by: * France: Independently of the top-groupings, it is necessary to reorder the sections - in order they can be aggregated without having to skip some sections to group together other ones; - in order to well show the "logical" stream of the activities. * Japan: As for Japan, 22 Sections of ISIC proposed in the ISIC structure draft are equivalent to 18 Divisions (top-level categories) in JSIC. We do not think that it is necessary to further introduce top-level categories on these 18 Divisions in JSIC. * Portugal: We think that it's better to reduce the number of the sections (no more than 16 sections) and to create an important number of homogeneous divisions. * Slovenia: The agregation could be similar to A6 for European System of Accounts. * Thailand: We would like to propose that item 3 Manufacturing, repair, electricity, gas and water; waste management should be split into 2 items, i.e. Manufacturing and repair. Electricity, gas and water; waste management. * ILO: The nine aggregate groups presented in paragraph 39 on p. 10 seems reasonable. The main problem would seem to be where to include '4 Repair and maintenance'. To include it with 'Manufacturing, electricity, gas and water and waste management' does not seem logical. One possibility may be to let 4.1 and 4.3 be aggregated with 'Services to business etc' and 4.2 with 'Services to persons' for this purpose. * Afristat: the number of items could be slightly reduced by some regroupings. For example, without being decisions or firm proposals: Manufacturing and Construction, all services except Public administration, Education, Health and social action. On the other hand, a regrouping of Agriculture with Mines and extraction is not desirable. Repair-Maintenance should be classified in the services; why not with the Business services.