1. United Nations Statistics Division
CPC Ver.2
History, scope and purpose
United Nations Statistics Division

2. Purpose Established in first version of CPC in 1989:
Provide a framework for the international comparison of statistics, dealing with goods, services and assets
Serve as a guide for developing or revising existing classification schemes of products in order to make them compatible with international standards

3. Purpose CPC was developed primarily to:
enhance harmonization among various fields of economic and related statistics
strengthen the role of national accounts as an instrument for the coordination of economic statistics
CPC provides a basis for recompiling basic statistics from their original classifications into a standard classification for analytical use

4. Use CPC is used in many statistical programmes
Can be applied to all that make reference to “products” and group data accordingly
Obvious applications for all kinds of economic statistics
CPC can serve as the standard classification for products, from which specialized subsets are derived

5. Use CPC is used also for non-statistical purposes
Administrative and legal applications
E.g. requirements for specific services provided

6. History 6 6

7. History CPC was originally released in 1989 as the “Provisional CPC”
Purpose was to provide a framework that can be tested by countries and then be further refined
Revisions have been undertaken in 1997, 2002 and 2007

8. History
Revisions of CPC have reviewed concepts for defining and grouping products
In particular services
Sectoral review has dominated the revision processes
Size of the classification has not changed significantly

9. History Number of categories in CPC versions: Prov. CPC 10 69 293 1050
Section
Division
Group
Class
Subclass
Prov. CPC 10 69
293
1050
1811
CPC Ver.1.0 71
307
1167
2101
CPC Ver.1.1 70
305
2098
CPC Ver.2
324
1265
2738

10. Scope The scope of CPC has seen a number of changes in these revisions
Changes are related to treatment of assets
Non-produced assets
Intangible assets
Constructions

11. Structure
The CPC structure has largely remained the same at higher levels
Deviations are due to changes in scope
Modifications at especially the lowest level have occurred due to the introduction of new products