The International Standard of Industrial Classification of All Economic Activities (ISIC) code was developed by the UN as a standard way of classifying economic activities. The ISIC code groups together enterprises if they produce the same type of goods or service or if they use similar processes (i.e. the same raw materials, process of production, skills or technology). The ISIC system is now used widely by governments and international bodies as a way if classifying data according to economic activity. One key purpose of the code is to standardize data collection and promote international comparability.

The ISIC code is periodically reviewed as new types of economic activity become important and to harmonize with other classification systems. The original code was adopted in 1948. Revision 1 was issued in 1958. Revision 2 was published in 1968. All countries report to Revision 2 of the code. Revision 3 of the code was published in 1989. Most but not all countries now report to this revision.

The ISIC code covers all areas of economic activity but the UNIDO databanks only relate to the manufacturing section of the code. The code is organised hierarchically with each level containing an increasing level of detail. For example, manufacturing is subdivided into around 20 categories at the 2 digit level, 30 categories at the 3 digit level and 81 categories at the 4 digit level. ISIC levels beyond 4 have been discontinued in the latest ISIC revision.

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ISIC Combinations

Some of the ISIC categories are combined to form new classifications e.g. at the 4 digit level the combination ISIC 3841B consists of:

• 3841 ship building and repairing
• 3842 manufacture of railroad equipment
• 3844 manufacture of motorcycles and bicycles
• 3845 manufacture of aircraft

All the databases contain some of these ISIC combinations. Unfortunately UNIDO only provides definitions of these in terms of the original code numbers, so the user may need to work backwards from these numbers to find the descriptions.

ISIC combination code lists are provided in the INDSTAT User Guides:

• INDSTAT4 2010 ISIC Rev.3 User Guide
• INDSTAT4 2009 ISIC Rev.2 User Guide
• INDSTAT2 2010 ISIC Rev.3 User Guide

The Classifications Section of the United Nations produces more general information and news about the ISIC code and other UN classification systems.

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