Central Product Classification (CPC)
CPC is the abbreviation of Central Product Classification. The Central Product Classification (CPC) constitutes a complete product classification covering goods and services. It serves as an international standard for assembling and tabulating all kinds of data requiring product detail, including industrial production, national accounts, service industries, domestic and foreign commodity trade, international trade in services, balance of payments, consumption and price statistics.
At the website of the United Nations Statistics Division there is an English pdf document of 600 pages without bookmarks. It defines the product classes and describes by which ISIC classes products or services are produced. Also the correspondence to the Harmonized System used by customs is described. The below table lists the ten product sections.
Annex 4 lists the CPC divisions and groups for each of the ten CPC sections. For each section there is a link to the CPC Section page of the Ens wiki. The online Ens wiki CPC chapter contains the definitions and ISIC correspondences for each CPC section, division, group and class.
| #tagcoding | CPC section |
|---|---|
| #cpc0 | Agriculture, forestry and fishery products |
| #cpc1 | Ores and minerals; electricity, gas and water |
| #cpc2 | Food products, beverages and tobacco; textiles, apparel and leather products |
| #cpc3 | Other transportable goods, except metal products, machinery and equipment |
| #cpc4 | Metal products, machinery and equipment |
| #cpc5 | Constructions and construction services |
| #cpc6 | Distributive trade services; accommodation, food and beverage serving services; transport services; and electricity, … |
| #cpc7 | Financial and related services; real estate services; and rental and leasing services |
| #cpc8 | Business and production services |
| #cpc9 | Community, social and personal services |
Tools for looking up cpc hashtags
For the cpc hashtags two tools are provided:
In the chapter on the mixed term cloud we explained the addition of cpc hashtag codes to terms for tagging the item: pages.
The term cloud Tags for goods, services and bads can be used to look up the #cpc code for many products and services, but is not complete (yet).
The ISIC class definition pages in the Ens wiki include references to the cpc pages for its products or services. This is illustrated for #isic0230 - Gathering of non-wood forest products in the screenshot below.
Each CPC class page (in the Ens wiki) has a breadcrumbs which shows where it is positioned in the Central Product Classification. This is illustrated for #cpc0137 - Nuts (excluding wild edible nuts and groundnuts), in shell.
Each CPC class page (in the Ens wiki) has a siblings classes tab which shows the other classes (or divisions) in the Central Product Classification. This is also illustrated for #cpc0137 - Nuts (excluding wild edible nuts and groundnuts), in shell.
CPC 0 - Agriculture, forestry and fishery products
The CPC section A - Agriculture, forestry and fishing includes the divisions and groups in the below table.
| CPC tag | CPC division or group |
|---|---|
| #cpc01 | Products of agriculture, horticulture and market gardening |
| #cpc011 | Cereals |
| #cpc012 | Vegetables |
| #cpc013 | Fruits and nuts |
| #cpc014 | Oilseeds and oleaginous fruits |
| #cpc015 | Edible roots and tubers with high starch or inulin content |
| #cpc016 | Stimulant, spice and aromatic crops |
| #cpc017 | Pulses (dried leguminous vegetables) |
| #cpc018 | Sugar crops |
| #cpc019 | Forage products; fibre crops; plants used in perfumery, pharmacy, or for insecticidal, fungicidal or similar purposes; |
| #cpc02 | Live animals and animal products (excluding meat) |
| #cpc021 | Live animals |
| #cpc022 | Raw milk |
| #cpc023 | Eggs of hens or other birds in shell, fresh |
| #cpc024 | Reproductive materials of animals |
| #cpc029 | Other animal products |
| #cpc03 | Forestry and logging products |
| #cpc031 | Wood in the rough |
| #cpc032 | Non-wood forest products |
| #cpc04 | Fish and other fishing products |
| #cpc041 | Fish, live, not for human consumption |
| #cpc042 | Fish live, fresh or chilled for human consumption |
| #cpc043 | Crustaceans, live, fresh or chilled |
| #cpc044 | Molluscs live, fresh or chilled |
| #cpc045 | Other aquatic invertebrates, live, fresh or chilled |
| #cpc049 | Other aquatic plants and animals |
As yet, for cpc coding hashtags no localization by adding country codes has been practised. It is an option to do this. In that case #cpc023BE would refer to Eggs of hens or other birds in shell, fresh from Belgium, for instance.
It is also possible to create hashtags for the trade in products, for instance: #cpc021INBD for the trade of #cpc021 - Live animals from India (IN) to Bangladesh (BD).
News and content on tariffs for products traded from China (CN) to the United States of America (US), and vice versa, could thus be shared using coding hashtags combining the appropriate product division, group or class cpc tag, and adding the two-country codes CNUS or USCN respectively, such as for instance in #cpc042CNUS and #cpc042USCN.