ISTANBUL: A halal economy proponent has proposed an initiative called the Halal Knowledge Base aimed at providing easy availability of web-based information on halal in a unified manner.
Portugal-based EU Halal chief executive officer Tayeb Habib said he was spearheading the move as information and data on the wide-ranging halal industry was now scattered all over the place.
“Now, I’m just proposing it in theoretical terms but we can find good tech people to do it, and once we have the infrastructure in place, may be we can find some investors to put in a small amount of money to drive it further,” said the CEO of the halal trading and consulting company.
He told Bernama this on the sidelines of the 5th Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) Halal Expo and World Halal Summit Istanbul 2017 here.
Habib, one of the speakers at the Istanbul gathering of halal industry players, said the proposed set-up should also be able provide consultancy services to companies in need of further assistance on matters concerning halal.
Another speaker, Asad Sajjad, chief executive officer of Pakistan-based Halal Development Council, noted that Malaysia and Indonesia were the two main Muslim countries present in the global halal market – accounting for almost 15 per cent share.
He said countries such as Turkey, Pakistan, Iran and the United Arab Emirates had also become active.
However, the 10 biggest exporters of halal products, he said, were non-Muslim countries, namely India, Brazil, Australia, the US, Argentina, New Zealand, France, Thailand, the Philippines and Singapore – enjoying almost 85 per cent share of the global halal market.
Meanwhile, Iran-based Faroogh Life Sciences Research Laboratory manager Dr Mohammed Hossein Shojaee AliAbadi (rpt AliAbadi) talked about adulteration as a great challenge to halal food integrity.
To overcome the problem, he said that effective administrative measures, among others, must be put in place to prevent and control food fraud.
He also said that food items should be regularly tested for authenticity using validated test methods to ensure the absence of non-syariah compliant elements. — Bernama