ECONOMIC STATISTICS AND THE CLASSIFICATION

USING THE CLASSIFICATION FOR ECONOMIC STATISTICS

The title of the SACC (the Standard Australian Classification of Countries) reflects its suitability for use in a wider range of applications than its precursor, the Australian Standard Classification of Countries for Social Statistics (ASCCSS).

The SACC is intended for use in the collection, storage and dissemination of all Australian statistical data classified by country.

In the field of population statistics, the classification is intended for use whenever demographic, labour and social statistics are classified by country.

The structure of the SACC can be directly adopted in some economic statistics, such as international merchandise trade. For other economic statistics the SACC can be supported by alternative country groupings.

In some cases, there is a need in economic statistics to use broader geographic groupings than provided in the SACC, to give a geographic perspective while protecting the confidentiality of reported information. To cater for such cases broader continental classification elements, such as 'Africa, nec', can be used to derive continental aggregates. These are generally in line with international statistical practice and facilitate international comparison.



Standard Coding Options

The groupings of countries are provided to allow for the continuation of time series and to enhance the usefulness of the SACC.

The full range of codes required to derive data for these groupings is listed in the Standard Australian Classification of Countries data cube from the Downloads tab.



SUPPLEMENTARY CODES FOR ECONOMIC AND OTHER ENTITIES

In some cases, the collection and aggregation of data for economic statistics (such as international trade and international investment position statistics) require data to be coded to entities that do not equate directly to a single country, or to countries at all. Such entities have been assigned unique four digit codes beginning with '07'.

For example: 'Belgium and Luxembourg' is allocated code 0704, Reserve Bank Gold is allocated code 0741.

Although these supplementary codes are not part of the classification structure, they should be considered when aggregating and presenting data for both the structure and the alternative groupings.