RAMALLAH, January 9, 2011 (WAFA) - President Mahmoud Abbas Sunday appointed Ola Awad as director of the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics (PCBS), making her the first Palestinian woman to head a non-ministerial government institution.

The PCBS is the provider of the official statistics in Palestine and was one of the first institutions of the Palestinian Authority to be established after the Oslo agreement in 1993.

Awad, holder of an MBA from Boston University in the United States and an economics graduate of Birzeit University in the West Bank, has been the acting president of the PCBS since 2009.

Awad stressed the commitment of the PCBS to 'maintain its core values of professionalism, transparency and independence.'