Chapter 2: Classification of business

Chapter aims

  • [x] The difference between primary, secondary and tertiary production
  • [ ] the reasons for the changing importance of business classification eg: in developed and developing countries
  • [ ] the difference between public sector and private sector business enterprises in a mixed economy

==The primary sector in industry-== extracts and uses natural resources of Earth to produce raw materials used by other businesses.

==The secondary sector-== manufactures goods using raw materials provided by the primary sector.

==The tertiary sector-== provides services to consumers and other sectors of industry.

Stages of economic activity (wood table)

Primary- woodcutter. Earths natural resources

primary sector- farming, fishing, forestry and the extraction of raw materials (oil, copper, ore)

secondary- Furniture maker. Converting natural resources into goods.

secondary sector- baking. building and construction, aircraft and car manufacturing, computer assembly.

Tertiary- retailer. Stage of production.

Tertiary sector- transport, banking, retail, insurance, hotels and hairdressing.

BusinessPrimarysecondarytertiary
Insurancex
Forestryx
Coal miningx
computer assemblyx
travel agentx
Bakeryx
car showroomx

Relative importance of economic sectors

two ways of finding out which sector is more important country by country.

  1. Percentage of the country’s total number of workers employed in each sector.

2.value of output goods and services and the proportion this is of total national output.