Methodology & Data Governance
This page outlines the data acquisition, verification pipeline, and transformation architecture employed by the Saudi Business Codes directory.
1. Primary Data Acquisition
Our datasets are compiled directly from published statistical and regulatory classifications issued by Saudi government authorities:
- SSIC January 2025 Edition: National Classification of Economic Activities (based on the United Nations ISIC Rev. 4 taxonomy, customized for Saudi economic sectors).
- SSCO 2024 Unified Edition: The Saudi Standard Classification of Occupations, detailing job titles, education requirements, skill tags, and major unit groupings.
- Structural Normalization: Raw classification spreadsheets and registers are normalized into a unified relational database schema covering Sections (A–U), Divisions (2-digit), Groups (3-digit), Classes (4-digit), and Activities (6-digit).
- Hierarchy Integrity Checks: Every activity code is verified against its entire parent chain to guarantee zero broken lineages.
- Regulatory Mapping: Supervisory and licensing entities (e.g., Central Bank, Ministry of Industry, Food & Drug Authority) are mapped to leaf activity nodes based on official GASTAT releases.
- Bilingual Harmonization: Arabic and English names are cross-referenced to eliminate translation artifacts or mismatched identifier pairs.
3. Compliance Risk Score & Crosswalk Methodology
Our system computes deterministic data completeness scores based on:
- Presence in verified national registries.
- Mapping to international standards (ISIC Rev. 4 / ISCO-08).
- Complete 5-tier hierarchical validation.
- Supervisory & licensing authority identification.
4. Updates & Editorial Maintenance
We conduct periodic reconciliations against GASTAT publications. When code expansions, consolidations, or regulatory oversight shifts occur, records are updated and versioned accordingly.