ISIC v4

The International Standard Industrial Classification of All Economic Activities

The International Standard Industrial Classification of All Economic Activities (ISIC)

is the international reference classification of productive activities. Its main purpose is

to provide a set of activity categories that can be utilized for the collection and reporting

of statistics according to such activities.

This fourth revision of ISIC (ISIC, Rev.4) is the outcome of a review process that

spanned several years and involved contributions from many classifications experts

and users around the world. This process resulted in an ISIC structure that is more

detailed than the previous version, responding to the need to identify many new

industries separately. This is especially applicable in the case of services. Moreover,

the relevance of the Classification has been enhanced with the introduction of new

high-level categories to better reflect current economic phenomena. A new section

entitled “Information and communication” (see part three, sect. J) is one such innovation.

Comparability has also been enhanced with a number of other regional activity

classifications, thus making this version of ISIC a much improved tool for international

data comparison.