RESTRICTED
WORLD TRADE S/CSC/W/17
31March 1998
ORGANIZATION(98-1321)
Committee onSpecific Commitments
STATEMENT OFTHE UNITED NATIONS STATISTICS DIVISION
Presented toWorld Trade Organization
Committee onSpecific Commitments
2April 1998, Geneva
TheSecretariat hasreceived theattached communication fromtheUnited Nations Statistical
Division. Thepaper refers totheworks oftheCommittee onSpecific Commitments onthecomparison
between CPCprovisional andCPCrev.1 withtherequest thatitbecirculated totheMembers ofthe
Committee.
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"There weretwoitems ontheagenda oftheNineteenth Session oftheUnited Nations Working
Group onInternational Statistical Programmes andCo-ordination, held inNew York on10-
13February 1998, related toCentral Product Classification, Version 1.0andthefollowing conclusions
were reached.
International Economic andSocial Classifications
27. TheWorking Group welcomed thecompletion oftheCentral Product Classification (CPC),
Version 1.0anditssubmission forpublication.
28. TheWorking Group alsowelcomed theclose working relationship thathadbeenestablished
byUNSD andtheVoorburg Group withtheWorld Trade Organization inthecontext oftheGeneral
Agreement onTrade inServices (GATS). Ittooknoteoftheproblem ofmaintaining amajor
international statistical standard classification suchastheCPC, through regular updating, revision and
interpretation, while atthesame timeitwasbeing usedasasource forpreparation ofinternational
agreements suchasGATS.
29. TheWorking Group recognized thefactthatthetwointernational initiatives of:(a)preparing
andimplementing theCPC asinternational statistical standard; and(b)using theCPC asasource
inthecontext ofGATS, wereindependent andmutually supportive activities. TheWorking Group
agreed thatwhen statistical classifications wereutilized forpurposes other thanstatistical uses, such
aswhen theywere utilized forlegalagreements, cautionary notes were required. Forexample, if
alegal textoracontract makes reference toastatistical classification, those whoprepared thetext
arefullyresponsible fortheconsequences. Itwould beviewed astheirtask,andnottheresponsibility
ofclassification committees, toexplain whatwasdoneinthelegaltextsorcontracts."
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