UTAR Centre for Entrepreneurial Sustainability
(CENTS) collaborated with UTAR Faculty of Accountancy and Management (FAM)
and the Halal Centre of Excellence
(Halal CoE) to organise a webinar titled Prospects and Opportunities of
World Halal Market. The webinar
took place on 13 July 2022 via Microsoft Teams, with Ustaz Mohd Jabal bin
Abdul Rahim, the head of Halal
CoE, invited to be the speaker. Meanwhile, moderating the webinar was UTAR
FAM lecturer Fitriya binti Abdul Rahim.
The webinar was mainly aimed at raising awareness
about the value of Halal and the
opportunities that the Halal
market provides. The talk began with Ustaz Jabal explaining the basic
concept of Halal. He stated that
it is an Arabic word which means “permitted” or “lawful”. On the other hand,
its antonym, Haram is also an
Arabic word which means “prohibited”. He then talked about the five
universal objectives of Halal,
which are the Protection of Deen, Life, Mind, Property and Lineage.
Ustaz Jabal explaining the prospects
and opportunities of Halal market
Speaking about halal products, Ustaz Jabal said,
“When a product is deemed Halal,
it means that it is using certified and proven
Halal ingredients and materials. Once that has been achieved, the
product must also be Thoyyiban,
which means wholesomeness. To make a product
Thoyyiban, the product must be
Halal and the workers need to
properly take care of the product during the processing and production
phases. If not, it will lose its
Thoyyiban.”
Ustaz Jabal moved on to talk about the development of
Halal in the global industry. “The
Halal logo is a symbol of trust,
as it can help Muslims identify halal products easily, and fulfil their
responsibility of consuming Halal
products. Meanwhile, it helps non-Muslims especially in non-Muslim countries
to identify a high-quality product, as the logo brings assurance of a
quality product. This proves that
Halal is universal as it can help both Muslims and non-Muslims,” said
Ustaz Jabal. He also displayed a statistic which pointed out importers of
Halal products are mostly from Muslim countries such as Indonesia
and Pakistan, while, the exporters consist of non-Muslim countries like
Brazil and Australia.
Ustaz Jabal showing interesting
statistics about Halal market
Ustaz Jabal pointed out, “When entering the
Halal industry, a company usually
prioritises a Muslim country, but a lot of these countries enforce strict
Halal regulations, like Indonesia.
This becomes a trade barrier, and it gets difficult to enter the country.
Therefore, companies also have to look at non-Muslim countries with a high
Muslim population like India and Russia.”
Speaking on the topic of the development of
Halal in the global industry,
Ustaz Jabal noted the three stakeholders involved in
Halal certification; Authority,
Industry players and consumers. “The
Halal authorities are in charge of controlling and regulating
Halal implementations, issuing
Halal certificates, and boosting the
Halal industry. Meanwhile,
industry players take the opportunity to cater to market demand and make
Halal products based on market
demand. The consumers are extremely important as they are the catalysts
since they drive market demand and choose trusted halal products,” said
Ustaz Jabal.
Participants listening attentively
The final topic that Ustaz Jabal discussed was the
Halal Trade Barriers. The Halal Trade Barriers are comprised of four
barriers which include countries that recognise other
Halal Certification Bodies (HCB),
countries that recognise their own
Halal certificate only, countries that only recognise HCBs with ISO
17065, and countries without any restrictions. He also mentioned five
different issues pertaining to Halal,
which included its definition, uncertain ingredients, fake logos, non-Halal
ingredients and good manufacturing practices implementation (GMP).
The webinar ended with a short Q&A and photography
session.
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