In response to the directives of the Council of Ministers approving of the National Classification of Economic Activities of the General Authority for Statistics (GaStat,) and as a reliable classification for all concerned entities, GaStat held an introductory workshop under the auspices of His Excellency, the Minister of Economy and Planning, Eng. Adel Fakieh, on Tuesday Muharram 20th , 1439H (October 10th ,2017), in the presence of more than 120 participants representing 40 governmental entities.   
HE the President of GaStat, Dr. Fahad Altekhaifi, valued the adoption of the National Classification of economic Activities (ISIC -4) as an approved classification by which all relevant parties work. He also thanked the Minister for supporting the workshop. At the opening of the workshop, he stressed that since the issuance of the directive in Ramadhan 25th, 1438H, Gastat was keen to communicate with all concerned entities to apply the classification. Therefore, GaStat prepared the Application Guidelines of the National Classification of Economic Activities (ISIC-4), which includes the detailed tools and mechanisms that insure compliance of entities with the classification and provides necessary support.
HE explained that the importance of the classification lies in a number of objectives: providing a set of divisions, groups, classes, and categories of activities that can be used to gather and disseminate statistics according to activities, collecting enumeration units according to sequential order and determined by homogeneous groups, finding a general framework to compare statistical data at the local, regional and international levels, dividing the data of the economic activity into specific levels in a manner that the characteristics of the economic activities classified in a single level are similar, providing a set of statistical data by the economic activity of production, manpower, wages, capital assets, profits, losses and budget, as well as providing a comprehensive framework for economic activities to facilitate handling metadata automatically.
Dr. Fahad Altekhaifi stressed that GaStat and all its partners from concerned ministries, authorities and enterprises in the Kingdom work to make the National Classification of Economic Activities applicable in all concerned entities before January 1st,2018. At the end of the workshop, HE expressed his thanks and gratitude to the representatives of the government entities for cooperation in order to adopt the application of the classification as active partners in the statistical sector.
It is noteworthy to mention that since the approval of the original version of the classification in 1948, most countries around the world started using it as their national classification until it became an important tool for the comparison of the statistical data of economic activities at the international level. The first vision of the International Standard Industrial Classification of All Economic Activities (ISIC-2) was issued in 1958, and the second version (ISIC-2) was issued in 1968, then, the third version (ISIC) was issued in 1990, finally, the fourth vision (ISIC-4) was issued in 2006 by the United Nations Economic and Social Council. GaStat uses the classification in all its social and economic products, follows updates on the classification, and has recently been assigned to enable government entities to apply the classification as an approved classification for economic activities in the Kingdom.