Home » Philippines – Halal Meat Trade Needs To Expand

Philippines – Halal Meat Trade Needs To Expand

News From : DagangHalal.com (03 Jan 2010)

The Philippines has to adopt the Australian approach for halal meat and meat products to get a bigger pie of the $150 billion halal market.

This was determined after government and industry representatives led by Trade and Industry Senior Undersecretary Thomas Aquino went to Australia to gain a first hand knowledge on the best practices of Australia’s halal meat processing system through actual plant visits witnessing of proper halal procedures on the slaughter of cattle, sheep, goats, and chicken and informative briefings as well.

The term halal, which means “permissible” in Arabic, refers to anything that is allowed under Islam. In the non-Arabic-speaking world, it is most often used to describe food that can be consumed by observant Muslims. Halal standards are complementary with other food standards, such as the Good Manufacturing Practice and the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) standards.

The global halal market is estimated to be 1.6 billion consumers in 112 countries in five continents and worth around $80 billion to $150 billion.

While the Philippine mission has realized that not all features of the Australian system are applicable to the Philippines, the mission identified areas for adoption in the Philippines.

For instance, being a non-Muslim country, the Australian national government’s intervention was focused on halal meat exports to ensure access to foreign markets.

Setting up of a similar approach would be appropriate considering that halal has a religious dimension that would readily fit into the country’s regulatory framework, Aquino said.

The training of Filipino Muslim slaughtermen especially those who will be chosen to work on halal meat for exports will raise the bar of halal conformance in the country.

The potential use of an export certificate for halal meat and/or meat products possibly by introducing a modified veterinary quarantine certificate being issued by the National Meat Inspection Service (NMIS) was recommended. This will strengthen the acceptability of halal certification issued by Philippine Islamic organizations.

Likewise, it was recommended that strengthening of the institutional capacity of the National Halal Accreditation Board in its function of accreditation of halal certifying bodies and training of Filipino Muslim slaughtermen be undertaken.

The promotion in the Philippines of a number of certifiers should encourage competition among them to the benefit of meat processors and halal meat consumers.

Initial consultations of the Philippine Mission Members with their Australian hosts and Islamic organizations showed interests to secure for the Philippines technical assistance in the assessment of halal certification capability of the Philippines and through the training of Filipino Muslim trainors and slaughtermen.

The biggest concentration of Muslim consumers are in Indonesia with 212 million, Pakistan with 158 million, Bangladesh with 127 million, Egypt with 69 million, Iran with 67 million, Turkey with 66 million, and Nigeria with 64 million.

Non-Muslim countries with sizable Muslim population include India with 174 million, China with 38 million, Russia with 11 million, USA with 7 million, the Philippines with 5 million, and Thailand with 4.5 million.

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