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 utilised 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.