News From : DagangHalal.com (19 Apr 2013)
The State Council has made the entire Ningxia Hui autonomous region a pilot in inland opening-up.
Ningxia, as an autonomous region, where there is a high concentration of Hui people, has mostly opened up westwards. Ningxia will open up in an all-round way and it is the region that boasts the largest advantage in opening up westwards.
We are similar to Arabic people in custom and culture and have maintained communication for a long time.
In the city of Wuzhong, Hui people make up more than a half of the total population. Wuzhong city has a population of more than 1.3 million but less than 1.4 million. The population of Hui people living in Ningxia has exceeded 730,000.
Wuzhong is a place concentrated with Hui people. We have a foundation for developing the Halal industry.
There are 130 enterprises above the designated size in Wuzhong’s Halal industry, including segmented industries such as Halal mutton and beef, Halal dairy products, Halal condiment, Halal snack foods and Muslim goods.
What are Halal foods? What is the Halal industry? The concepts might be hard for other people to fully understand. But as we develop this industry, we need to have standards.
But there are some difficulties concerning the standards. The standards can not be standards adopted by local businesses only. These standards must be national. But will Arabic countries accept China’s national standards for Halal food, or the whole Halal industry? That’s still a question.
We are thinking of how to solve this problem. That’s a bottleneck for us. We need to develop national standards, including manufacturing standards, research and development standards, and quality standards of end products. These standards must be in accordance with Arabic standards and be accepted by Arabic countries.
The central government should support Ningxia’s Halal industry, especially in fund, in land policies, and fiscal and taxation policies. Then we can develop the industry very well.
The difficulty of developing this industry lies in technology and talent.
If you do not have world-class manufacturing facilities, you might not be able to produce world-class products. More importantly we lack the talent.
We lack export-oriented experts and research and development experts for the Halal industry. We need experts who can design products used by Muslims. Lack of such talents is our shortcoming. We are improving this situation.
We have a foundation already and conditions for developing the Halal industry are maturing. The State Council has set Ningxia Hui autonomous region as an inland opening up pilot economic zone and developing the Halal industry is one of the four major tasks high on the agenda.
That’s the advantage of the city of Wuzhong.
According to the planning of the autonomous region, Wuzhong will build the national base for the Halal industry, including a manufacturing base, a research and development base and a logistics base. We have gained some support from the government of the autonomous region, including preferential policies concerning land, loans, fiscal expenditure, taxation and environmental protection.
We are taking efforts to ask the central government for some favorable polices. We hope we can make the Halal industry prosper within three to five years or even longer so that we can keep exporting our Halal foods and Muslim goods to Arabic countries.
We have done something already. Firstly, we have planned the Halal industry in an all-round way. Development without planning is blind and unscientific.
Secondly, we have attracted some university graduates majoring in the food industry.
Thirdly, we are collecting suggestions on standards for the Halal industry from all walks of life. We need to come up with standards that are acceptable by world Muslims, not only Chinese Muslims.
The tastes of Muslims living in the Middle East might have been Europeanized and Americanized. When we are making Halal food such as beef products for Arabic countries, we can not follow the standards of Chinese Muslims, or Muslims in Ningxia, we need to follow theirs.