NSO has new director general

Michael Pace Ross has been appointed director general of the National Statistics Office (NSO) with effect from November 5.

Mr Pace Ross will be replacing acting director general Reno Camilleri who took over last January after Gordon Cordina resigned as head of NSO when the Labour Party questioned the offices' credibility over the revision of GDP figures.

Mr Pace Ross, 35, who was also a Nationalist Party councillor in Sliema until last year, formed part of a team which changed Malta's National Accounts system from one based on the System of National Accounts (SNA) of 1954 to the European System of Accounts (ESA 1995).

He joined the office in 1998 and in 2005 was promoted to manager of the national accounts unit, having a leading role in the dissemination of the sources and methods used in the compilation of Gross National Income (GNI) and in the introduction of institutional sector accounts. Later on, he was given the responsibility for the supervision and coordination of the economic statistics division.

Throughout the years, Mr Pace Ross represented the NSO on various international technical committees and working groups including the Committee on Monetary, Financial and Balance of Payments Statistics (CMFB) and the GNI Committee.