Defining the ICT Sector

A definition of the ICT sector was adopted by the Working Party on Indicators for the Information Society (WPIIS) and subsequently endorsed and declassified at the September 1998 meeting of the Committee for Information, Computer and Communications Policy. The aim was to create a standard set of definitions in order to make a consistent measure of the ICT sector. The definition as adopted by CICCP differs to some extent to virtually all other ICT sector definitions used in Member countries. Nevertheless, it's a start. The following text has been taken verbatim from the OECD report entitled Measuring the ICT sector.

Principles Underlying the Definition

The agreed definition of the ICT sector was based on the following principles:

For manufacturing industries, the products of a candidate industry:

• Must be intended to fulfil the function of information processing and communication including transmission and display.
• Must use electronic processing to detect, measure and/or record physical phenomena or to control a physical process.

For services industries, the products of a candidate industry:

• Must be intended to enable the function of information processing and communication by electronic means.

Thus, ICT manufacturing + ICT services = ICT sector.

The Definition in Terms of ISIC Classes

Adoption of these principles led to a definition based on the industrial classes of revision 3 of the International Standard Industrial Classification (ISIC). The classes included in the definition are as follows:

Manufacturing

• 3000 - Office, accounting and computing machinery
• 3130 - Insulated wire and cable
• 3210 - Electronic valves and tubes and other electronic components
• 3220 - Television and radio transmitters and apparatus for line telephony and line telegraphy
• 3230 - Television and radio receivers, sound or video recording or reproducing apparatus, and associated goods
• 3312 - Instruments and appliances for measuring, checking, testing, navigating and other purposes, except industrial process equipment
• 3313 - Industrial process control equipment

Services

• 5150 - Wholesaling of machinery, equipment and supplies*
• 7123 - Renting of office machinery and equipment (including computers)
• 6420 - Telecommunications
• 72 - Computer and related activities

* Where possible, Member countries were asked to limit this class to include only the wholesaling of ICT goods as shown in the Manufacturing component of the definition shown above.