Standard International Trade Classification

Summary of Standard International Trade Classification

A system for capture of international trade statistics developed under the auspices of the United Nations. The original SITC was adopted by the Economic and Social Council of the United Nations in July 1950. By 1960 many nations were compiling data on a commodity basis; coincidental with the rise of the SITC, the Brussels Tariff Nomenclature (BTN) was adopted by many countries. The BTN classifies goods according to the material of which they are made. Coordination of the SITC and BTN proved difficult, resulting in efforts to reconcile both systems. The first revision (SITC, revised) was published in 1960; a second revision (SITC, revision 2) was published in 1975. Each member of the UN is requested to report trade statistics categorized according to SITC, revision 2. The system divides commodities into groups and subgroups, each of which is correlated with a heading or subheading of the BTN, as well as the related heading of the 1960 (revised) SITC. In addition, items are classified according to a broad economic category.

The SITC, revision 2, is published by the Statistical Office of the United Nations.

(Main Author: William J. Miller)

SITC (Standard International Trade Classification) and International Trade Economy

In relation to international trade economy, Christopher Mark (1993) provided the following definition of SITC (Standard International Trade Classification): The classification system used by the United Nations for compiling and publishing international trade data. Although countries employ a variety of data collection systems for their own purposes (see, for example, TSUSA), UN members are requested to use the current version of the SITC in reporting their import and export data to the UN Statistical Office. The original SITC was adopted by the UN Economic and Social Council in 1950. The SITC, Revised was established in 1960 in an effort to reconcile trade data compiled by many countries on a commodity basis with the Brussels Tariff Nomenclature (Sec.l), which classified goods according to the material of which they were made; a second effort along these lines, SITC Revision 2, was established in 1975. SITC Revision 3, introduced in 1986, currently provides 3,118 basic product headings organized in a system of five-digit classification codes, and is aligned with the H harmonized System ( Sec .I) of customs classification. Analyses of international trade patterns almost always involve SITC- based data. However, SITC classifications do not concord with SICclassifications.

Standard International Trade Classification and International Trade Economy

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See Also

SITC