The North American Industry Classification System (NAICS) has been developed by the statistical agencies of Canada,
Mexico and the United States. Created against the background of the North American Free Trade Agreement, it is
designed to provide common definitions of the industrial structure of the three countries and a common statistical
framework to facilitate the analysis of the three economies. NAICS is based on supply-side or production-oriented
principles, to ensure that industrial data, classified to NAICS, are suitable for the analysis of production-related
issues such as industrial performance.
