Concordance Between the Commodity Codes in the Canadian Customs Tariff and the Standard

CONCORDANCE BETWEEN THE COMMODITY CODES IN THE CANADIAN CUSTOMS TARIFF AND THE STANDARD INDUSTRIAL CLASSIFICATION

INTRODUCTION

The purpose of this concordance is to provide the means to regroup import data coded according to the 10 digit coding system of the Canadian Customs Tariff into industry categories drawn from the Standard Industrial Classification. Data so regrouped are of interest for two reasons. Firstly, the regrouping reduces thousands of commodity codes to a few hundred, a number that is more easily understood. Secondly, the data so regrouped correspond to industries. Regrouped in this manner, import data can be analyzed in relation to the output of industries.

Users of commodity data regrouped by industry should appreciate that it is a rough tool at best. The following caveats should be noted by users of this concordance.

1.Each commodity is deemed to be the principal product of a single industry. Although this is generally true, in some instances a single commodity is made in a number of different industries, and sometimes the industry to which it should be assigned is difficult to determine or is unstable.

2.Many commodity categories are residual categories that can be made up of commodities from more than one industry. These categories have been assigned to a single industry.

3.Many imported commodities are not made in Canada. They have been assigned to the industry deemed most likely to have produced them, were they made in Canada.

4.The commodities have been assigned to industries as defined in the 1980 Standard Industrial Classification. This does not take into account any changes that may have occurred in the industrial structure since 1980.

Import data are important in the evaluation of the current condition of industries. Such data are available monthly, whereas the full range of industry data is only available annually, a couple of years after the reference year.

File layout

FieldsLengthDescription

Start6Date at which current Customs Tariff code came into effect- first 4 digits refer to the year and the last two digits refer to the month

End6Date at which current Customs Tariff (CT) code ceased to be in effectfirst 4digits refer to the year and the last two digits refer to themonth

CT1010 digit Customs Tariff (HS10 )code

SIC44 digit 1980 Standard Industrial Classification (SIC) code

NATURE OF CONCORDANCE

The CT x SIC concordance includes all CT codes that have been used between January 1, 1988 and December 31, 2001. The complete file contains over 30,000 records, but a single year consists of about 17,000 CT codes linked to SIC codes.There are about 308 SIC codes in the concordance for a single year. The SIC codes are distributed approximately as follows for a single year:

primary industries57

manufacturing232

service industries 19

Total308

USE OF THE CONCORDANCE

The concordance can be used to regroup import data into SIC groupings for any data that carry CT codes that existed between January l, 1988 and December 31, 2001. Such regrouped data are often used in conjunction with export and shipment data to monitor the performance of the economy. Standards Division has also produced a concordance that regroups export data by SIC. Data on shipments by manufacturers are available from the Industry Division.

CONCORDANCE MAINTENANCE

CT codes are changed continuously, a few changes are made annually to the SCG and, occasionally, SCG x SIC linkages are changed as new information reveals weaknesses in the existing linkages. It is possible, when residual CT categories are subdivided, to improve the CT x SIC concordance by assigning more appropriate SIC codes to some new categories. Resources permitting, this concordance will be updated annually. (This concordance is no longer maintained). The CT codes are now concorded to the current industry classification, the North American Industry Classification System (NAICS).

Gil Elliot

Standards Division