The Ministry of Trade (MoT) formed a technical committee to conduct a preliminary assessment to revise the Ethiopian StandardIndustrial Classification (ESIC). The classification is primarily used to avoid overlapping responsibilities and ease the process of registering business activities at government offices. Issues related with professional competency certifying bodies, newly added codes, and overlaps in coding and classification are some of the basic reasons that led the Ministry to revise the clarification for the second time.

The classification was first published in January 2010 with 982 categories and then revised and recognized as the first Ethiopian Standard Classification in 2013. As of July 2013 the classification went into services containing 1342 business divisions under 10 main business licensing categories.

Hagos Aregay, team leader of pre-licensing and verification at the Ministry and member of the committee, said, that after the assessment, the revision may take three to four months and it will be integrated to the classification rearrangement as an annex. Before improvement, it will be opened for public discussion mainly with the National Chamber.

Based on a recommendation from the World Bank, the MoT conducted different assessments and one of the meausres it took was to reduce business activities that don’t require a competency certificate by 923 . Hence, only 429 activities are required to have competency certificates.

Ethiopian Standard Industrial Classification (ESIC) is a system used for classifying industries by five digit code and Ethiopia has applied other clarifications that includes Control Product Clarification (CPC), Standard International Trade Clarification(SITC), and Harmonized Commodity Description & Coding System (HS Code).

Source: Addis Fortune