Malaysia plans to become global halal food hub

KUALA LUMPUR, APRIL 13: Malaysia plans to become a global hub for Islamic halal food by 2010, using its edge over other Muslim nations in trading, logistics, banking and halal certification, an official said on Thursday.

Malaysia will host the World Halal Forum in its biggest city Kuala Lumpur from May 8-10 to determine the direction of the world halal industry, which is worth anywhere between US$500 billion to US$2.3 trillion annually, said Khairy Jamaluddin, the chairman of the forum.

He said Malaysia-one of the most prosperous Muslim countries in the world-currently has a 1 per cent share of that market and hopes to raise it to 5 per cent by 2010.

“We are not talking about theology. The last thing I want to do is turn the forum into a theological debate. What we want to do is promote the business of halal,” said Khairy, who is also the director of ECM Libra Capital, a successful investment banking company.

The Malaysian government in its 2006-2010 national economic development plan talks about creating a nodal agency to promote the country as a center for halal, or Islamic dietary requirement and the religiously approved way of slaughtering animals.

Khairy said Malaysia cannot compete with countries such as Australia, India and Thailand in livestock and food production.

But Malaysia is one of the biggest trading nations in the Muslim world, its certification standard for halal food is widely recognised, it has a highly developed logistics network including ports and is fast becoming a hub for Islamic financing, Khairy said.

“There are a lot of synergies here that we can package together,” he said, adding that the market for halal food is not only Arab and Muslim nations in Asia, but also countries in Europe which have sizable Muslim minority populations.

The World Halal Forum will bring together businessmen, policy makers and executives from the entire supply chain including farming, manufacturing, logistics, retail, international food chain and services. The forum will also discuss the security of halal certification to prevent fake labeling.

Khairy said the aim is to learn about best practices from the business people and expose Malaysian businesses to the foreign markets. Among the speakers are executives of Nestle, McDonald’s and supermarket chains Tesco and Carrefour.

Source: Financialexpress.com

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