The board of directors of the General Authority for Statistics (GaSat) has appointed Abdullah Al-Batil, erstwhile deputy chairman, as a special adviser to the chairman of the agency.

The board thanked Al-Batil for all his contributions, especially while serving as deputy governor.  

Al-Batil, who graduated from King Saudi University with a B.A. in statistics in 1979, has obtained intensive courses and diplomas on statistics from Saudi Arabia and abroad. His extensive knowledge led to his appointment as GaSat’s deputy chairman in 2016.

Al-Batil worked as a statistical researcher and specialist at the GaSat’s department of Prices Indices from 1980 to 1987. In 1991, he was tasked to head the department.  A year later, he was appointed as a field supervisor of the national census project. In 1995, he was appointed as head of the Population and Vitality department. Some seven years later, he headed the department of Social Statistics.

In 2004, Al-Batil was promoted to be the deputy chairman of the national census project for operations. In 2010, he became head of that project.

In 2014, Al-Batil, was appointed as acting manager of what was then called the General Statistics Authority.

In 2015, he became the secretary-general of the National Population Committee before being appointed secretary-general of the census committee at the Council of Economic and Development Affairs in 2017.

Al-Batil is a member of the Netherlands-based International Statistical Institute (ISI), a professional association of statisticians that was founded in 1885.

He is also a member of many Arab, Islamic and global statistical centers, and has taken part in national statistic committees aiming to improve statistical works.