HALAL CHECKS: Jakim officers on their rounds to inspect halal logo and foodstuff at a food court in KL recently

PETALING JAYA: Restaurant owners favour speedier options to get halal certification as the Islamic Development Department (Jakim) is very rigid.

Malaysian Indian Restaurant Owner Association president Datuk R. Ramalingam Pillai said with Jakim’s halal logo as the sole certificate from next year, he said: “We welcome the move, but there’s only one problem, the process of getting the logo is too rigid.”

Explaining the new ruling could cause problems for some eateries when it comes into effect in less than four months, he said: “The duration for the certification process takes a lot of time. At times, it can be six months.

“It’s not that I don’t agree on the need to obtain the halal logo, I do as halal means clean. My recommendation for Jakim is to make the procedures simpler for future restaurant owners to apply for the logo directly rather than from elsewhere. Make it easier for us, restaurant owners.”

Federation of Malaysian Indian Muslim Association president (Permim) Dr Syed Ibrahim Mohd Ismail also agreed with the move of accepting only Jakim’s halal logo next year.

“It’s true some places produce the halal certificates but it’s good Jakim will be the official source. With only one source, the criteria can be standardised.”

He said he would not worry whether the industry would be affected. “There are restaurants under Permim which are also under the Malaysian Muslim Restaurant Owners Association (Presma). They are Jakim-approved. So, business-wise, I don’t think there would be any problem.”

Presma deputy president Sihabutheen Kirudu Mohamad said the move would not affect restaurant owners, especially those under them since they were Muslims.

“There are over 2,500 Presma members. Our members do not normally apply for Jakim’s halal logos as they are Muslims,but of course, they ensure their supplies are halal-certified.”

He also agreed the procedures to get Jakim’s halal logo were not easy to comply with.

Domestic Trade, Co-operatives and Consumerism Minister Datuk Seri Ismail Sabri Yaakob recently announced only Jakim’s halal logo would be valid from next year.

It came in the wake of discoveries of food traders displaying fake halal logos.

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It will help generate local agrifood processing entrepreneurs in the areas of production and marketing, focusing on the production of halal quality and food safety in order to penetrate the local and global market.

The incubators will also ensure proper implementation of good manufacturing practices by food entrepreneurs.

SQW China Ltd has been tasked with producing the comprehensive study after yesterday’s signing of an agreement between the Department of Agriculture and Agrifood under the Ministry of Industry and Primary Resources, and SQW China Ltd for the ‘Consultancy Project on Development of Food Processing Incubators for Local Food SMEs of Brunei Darussalam Phase I.”

Signing on behalf of the Department of Agriculture and Agrifood was its Director Hjh Normah Suria Hayati binti PJDSM Dr Hj Mohd Jamil Al-Sufri, with Assistant Director Pg Hjh Rosidah binti Pg Metussin as the witness.

Meanwhile SQW China Ltd Project Director Gary Ho signed on behalf of SQW China Ltd, with Project Manager Jim Jessamine as witness.

The scope of the project includes developing detailed a master plan including concept designs for the food processing incubators, developing agreement terms for the provision of utilising the incubators, recommending the most appropriate management structure for running the food processing incubators, and establishing human resource requirements.

For Phase I, four food processing incubator facilities for sauces, bakery products, beverages and meat products will be built at the Brunei Agrotechnology Park in Kg Tungku.

The park is a new development area initiated by the Brunei government through the Ministry of Industry and Primary Resources as part of its main strategy for the development and promotion of industries other than oil and gas.

The four food processing incubator facilities will bring opportunities to food entrepreneurs who are without a proper food processing premise to fully mechanise their production in order to produce food products that are consistent in aspects of quality and safetST, which can contribute to an increase in local food supply for local and export markets.

Under the concept of the Food Processing Incubators Project, the Department of Agriculture and Agrifood will provide advisory services and technical expertise as well as maintenance service for machines, utensils and incubator buildings to ensure the facilities operate in an orderly manner.

In an interview, Gary Ho said, “With the incubators here, we can facilitate with our successful experience in Hong Kong, China and Europe to explore international markets.

We also see huge market potential for the Brunei halal product brand in China.”

Meanwhile, Jim Jessamine said “We will be focusing on four areas of sauces, bakery products, beverages and meat products. We will work with local SMEs to develop and expand into new areas, using new techniques and equipment to work together in launching new products that will be commercialised in the market.

“For people or companies who have good ideas on how to make a successful business or new products, we will be there to help them.

“This is a study to set up the incubators to look at how it should be built, how it should be managed and what functions it should have, how people should be trained and what skills, and how much support the local companies need. At the end of this, there will be functioning incubators to develop new businesses,” he said.

“On our side, we will be providing information on SMEs, the products and whatever hiccup we have here. They will provide information of what is going on in the oversea market to see how this can work,” Agriculture and Agrifood Director Hjh Normah Suria Hayati binti PJDSM Dr Hj Mohd Jamil Al-Sufri said.

She added, “The aim of the project is to export local products. And, to export local companies we will have to meet various certain standards.

“Therefore, this agreement will help give us the feedback. We engage the company to help us. We outsource because of their expertise. After nine months there will be lots of discussion whether this will work or not. Within the nine months we will also talk with SMEs, and after the nine months, we will actually have a plan on what kind of incubators we should have in Brunei.”– Courtesy of Borneo Bulletin

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Mr Surapong said the Halal food export figure is about Bt10 billion, listing only entrepreneurs registering with Thailand’s Halal Standard Institute.

Halal food is a niche market, he said. All food products potentially developed as Halal food have a market value worldwide of around US$680 billion annually, or 76 per cent of the world’s food trade which accounts to over US$880 billion.

The Halal market tends to continually increase, he said, as a result of the growing purchasing power of the population in Islamic countries.

While the market is not particular to Middle Eastern nations, but includes all the world’s 1.6 billion Muslim people or one-fourth of the world population, but many Halal foods are popular among non-Muslim consumers.

Petch Chinabutr, president of National Food Institute, said his organisation and related agencies have mapped out a five-year strategic plan (2010-2014) to promote and develop the potential of Halal goods and services.

The plan comprises raising Halal services and production standards, standardising approval processes of Halal products, developing marketing strategies to international level, researching Halal science and managing the business to build up strength of the country’s Halal industry and trade.

Mr Petch said the plan’s focus to be applied only on 57 Muslim countries of the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC), having a population of around 1.5 billion, or 95 per cent of worldwide Muslim population.

The world’s Halal market is valued around Bt2 trillion annually (US$62.5 billion). Currently, Malaysia and Indonesia are the only Muslim countries ranking the eighth and ninth countries
respectively, out of ten, holding the world’s highest Halal market share.

Non-Islamic countries, Brazil, has the biggest market share for Halal products, counting around 10.7 per cent of Muslim markets, followed by United States, India, Russia, and Thailand, with the share of 6.8, 6.0, 5.3, and 5.2 per cent respectively. (MCOT online news)

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Aug. 30 – Yinchuan, the capital city of Ningxia, will host the first China-Arab Trade Forum in a bid to further align itself with Arabic investment in hopes of securing petro-dollar investments.

Yinchuan is an ancient Silk Road city with a strong population of Muslims, many of them Arabic and Persian descendants of early Silk Road travelers. The Bank of Ningxia launched an Islamic services unit last December, which applies Shariah law to lending practices. Since then, the unit has conducted more than RMB70 million worth of business, demonstrating that there is a market for such services.

The forum will be held on September 26-30 and will be an important platform for all-round cooperation between China and the Arab nations, which have a common task of development, said Fu Ziying, vice commerce minister of China. To date, about 300 Arabic companies are sending delegates. Senior Chinese leaders also scheduled to attend.

Ningxia, China’s only specifically Muslim autonomous region, also hopes to attract investment from the Arab League’s 22 member states. In 2009, bilateral trade between China and the Arab states hit US$107.4 billion, compared to US$36.4 billion in 2004. Ningxia is home to 2.17 million Muslims. They make up over one-third of the autonomous region’s population and account for more than 10 percent of China’s total Muslim population of 20 million.

Arabic investors steer clear of investments in non-Islamic industries such as gambling and alcohol, while Islamic law also prohibits the charging of interest on debts. Hong Kong has also invested in Islamic banking services. Yinchuan is also connected to Dubai with routes through Shenzhen commencing from May this year, something that has also helped with the boosting of trade in Halal products.

Two cities in Ningxia, Helan and Wuzhong, are currently developing halal meat processing factories, and the Malaysian government approved a halal certification center in Yinchuan last March. The Saudi government is also in negotiations with the government of Ningxia over providing halal certification for the Saudi market for Ningxia products. Islam requires strict observance over food preparation and a religious leader should be on the premises to ensure compliance.

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Yarsi University professor of medicine, Jurnalis Udin, told The Jakarta Post recently that meningitis vaccine producers obtained their seed stocks from the C11 strain of Neisseria meningitidis bacteria, which was produced and developed only by the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research (WRAIR) in Maryland, the US, in the 1960s. “The institute produced the seed stocks, which were grown using the Mueller-Hinton medium, which includes using swine enzymes,” he said, adding that international academic journals confirmed the fact. Jurnalis said the Council’s claim that the Novartis vaccines were swine-free could not be held accountable through the lenses of science. “The common ancestor of seed stocks used for all meningitis vaccines had ‘come into contact’ with pig enzymes in the first place [during the initial isolation process of N. meningitidis bacteria],” he said, adding that Novartis had to have derived its vaccine seed stocks from the progenitors developed by the WRAIR.

Umar Anggara, a Gadjah Mada University professor of organic medicine, concurred. He said when the vaccine seed stocks “touched” the enzymes, it meant there was a potential they could be “contaminated” by the original swine materials used. He added that such enzymes served as “cutters” to break long protein chains, from which the bacteria fed. “In the process, the swine enzymes are not contained within or penetrated into the bacteria, which become the seed stock for meningitis vaccines. The enzymes position [in the isolation process] is only tangent to the bacteria,” Umar said. Umar added that this was due to a series of complicated purification processes.

Currently, many meningitis vaccine companies, including Glaxo, use an animal-free medium in developing seed stock for vaccines. Jurnalis, also a member of the scientific society of The New York Academy of Sciences, said if the Council considered the Glaxo vaccine forbidden, the Novartis vaccines had to be classified in the same way. The use of Glaxo vaccines in many Islamic countries, such as Malaysia and Saudi Arabia, is due to the lack of an alternative, and it has served a good purpose, he said. The Council, however, tried to find other alternatives to Glaxo, and in July, it claimed that the Novartis and the Tian Yuan vaccines did not “touch” or were not contaminated by pig enzymes in their manufacturing processes, as they originally contained only bovine elements. Jurnalis, however, questioned the credibility of using bovine components in such products.

The Novartis vaccines are now taking over Glaxo’s 10-year monopoly in meningitis vaccinations for Indonesian haj pilgrims, because China’s Tian Yuan vaccine is still waiting for clearance from the Food and Drug Monitoring Agency. (tsy)

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NCMF Secretary Bai Omera D. Dianalan-Lucman announced this on Friday, saying the IDB has asked the NCMF to help in arranging the visitors’ itinerary and activities.

She said engineer Essam Fadel Al-Shanqiti, IDB special assistance division manager, will be leading the group. The NCMF secretary said she was informed through a letter from the IDB.

Dianalan-Lucman said she was also informed that the NCMF proposal she made to the IDB for a modern halal slaughter house in Luzon is now up for review by the bank’s Islamic Finance Services Department.

“This response from the IDB is a good signal that the NCMF is fast gaining recognition as the premier government agency through which development support for Muslim Filipino communities could be effectively channeled,” said Dianalan-Lucman.

She thanked the IDB leadership led by President Muhammad Ali for the bank’s positive response to her representation when she visited Jeddah recently.

Dianalan-Lucman said that her efforts to secure economic projects for Muslims “through NCMF is in consonance with the policy of President Noynoy Aquino III on accountability and transparency.”

The OIC website said IDB is an international financing institution and one of the four specialized institutions of the OIC. IDB was inaugurated on October 20, 1975.

OIC member states set up the IDB based on the OIC’s framework following a resolution adopted by the Islamic Conference of Kings and Heads of State and Government or Islamic Conference of Foreign Ministers.

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SINGAPORE, Sunday 22 August 2010 (AFP) — In his days as a jet-setting telecom executive, ready-to-eat meals were a regular part of Fazal Bahardeen’s luggage. Many of the hotels he stayed in did not have halal-certified restaurants for Muslim travellers like the 47-year-old Sri Lankan-born Singaporean. Rooms lacked markers pointing to Mecca for prayers and staff were unable to answer questions from Muslim guests about their particular needs.

“Half of my life was spent in hotels and airplanes,” Fazal told AFP. “But being a Muslim, I was getting frustrated by the travel industry or the hotels not being able to provide the right services. You don’t know what the prayer time is, where the prayer direction is, and you can’t find halal food.”

But halal travel is now gaining popularity as demand for products and services permitted by Islam extends beyond food and interest-free financial instruments, and affluent Muslim travellers make their influence felt.

Halal travel is expected to be worth 100 billion US dollars annually within two years, said Fazal, who resigned from a senior management job at a major telecom firm in 2006 and set up his own company to tap into the expected boom. Fazal’s Crescentrating Pte Ltd is believed to be the only company in the world that rates hotels globally for their friendliness to Muslim travellers. Its online booking portal www.crescentrating.com also promotes halal tours.

Travel commentator Yeoh Siew Hoon told AFP there is a real demand for halal travel, led by tourists from Southeast Asia and the Middle East. “Take Indonesia — it is one of the fastest growing outbound markets in Asia, and is the number one source of visitors to Singapore,” said Yeoh, who operates an industry website www.webintravel.com.

“Tourism Australia also produces a guide to halal restaurants due to the growing numbers of travellers from Muslim countries,” she added.

Greg Duffell, chief executive of the Bangkok-based Pacific Asia Travel Association (PATA), said China’s sizeable Muslim population is another potential source of outbound travel. “A lot of suppliers are now amending their products to meet halal standards,” Duffell told AFP.

“It is a trend that started a few years ago. Since then, restaurants and resorts in Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam too have begun adapting their standards, so it’s beginning to branch out,” he said. “There are more designated halal restaurants in hotels now, and prayer facilities on the premises, especially at the airports.”

Crescentrating’s hotel grading system ranges from one to seven and is based on the availability of halal food as well as prayer rooms and mats — and the non-availability of forbidden items like alcohol and adult TV channels.

A rating of one is given to a hotel with no such facilities but whose employees are trained to answer questions from Muslim guests.

This can be raised a notch if the hotel has a list of halal-certified restaurants in its vicinity — even if it does not have one itself.

The company’s highest ratings, six and seven, require a hotel to be free of alcohol, discos and TV channels showing movies unsuitable for families and children. In addition, all food and beverages must be halal.

Globally, only Dubai’s Al Jawhara Garden Hotel has a rating of seven, while three hotels in Saudi Arabia and one in South Africa are rated six.

The halal food industry is worth 600 billion to 650 billion dollars a year, according to Fazal and industry reports.

Islamic finance meanwhile boomed when Muslims began to look for investments approved by their religion, and the sector has attracted non-Muslims too after the global financial crisis.

“The halal consciousness is rapidly going beyond food and finance,” said Fazal, arguing that with 1.6 billion increasingly wealthy Muslims worldwide, halal-friendly travel is likely to be the next growth area.

“Muslim travellers account for seven to eight percent of global tourism expenditure, which totalled around 930 billion dollars in 2009, up from just three-four percent 10 years ago,” Fazal said.

This share is expected to expand to 10 percent in the next two years.

Crescentrating also hopes to stamp halal-friendly ratings on theme parks, convention venues, cruise ships, shopping malls and hospitals used by medical tourists. (By MARTIN ABBUGAO/AFP)

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“We have set them as our examples in developing business,” said Abla, general manager of Xinjiang Arman Industrial Co.

Abla’s aim is to build Arman into the world’s top halal food brand. Today the company has already become the most famous halal food manufacturer in Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region, with over 200 kinds of products ranging from nutritional powder to milk and cakes.

Apart from food manufacturing, Arman has also expanded its portfolio into the retail and logistics industries. It now operates 2,275 chain stores in Xinjiang, and is building 10 distribution centers in the region.

Abla established Arman together with his brother 15 years ago after quitting the civil service. The two started their business with initial capital of just 3,000 yuan, renting an 8 sq m room in Urumqi selling home appliances.

Abla, with a degree in biology, soon turned his attention to Xinjiang’s rich agricultural resources.

“They are another gold mine for people to explore, but few have paid attention to them,” he said.

Today, Arman is also using some locally grown nuts to make different kinds of products, such as badam (almonds) and chickpeas, all of which have achieved success on the market.

Arman now owns four farms in Xinjiang, which provide materials including walnuts, chickpeas, milk and badam. The company has very strict standards to ensure the quality of its products, said Abla.

“Good quality contributes a lot to the success of our food products.”

Besides striving for high quality, Abla has also used different methods to promote his company’s products. When he decided to make TV commercials for his products, he first chose a local TV channel broadcasting in the Uygur language.

“Choosing that channel we can target Uygur people more,” he said.

Now Arman advertisements can now also be seen on Chinese-language TV channels. Its products are available in big supermarkets in major cities like Beijing and Shanghai, and are also exported to many other countries.

Having achieved big success in the food industry, Abla has ambitious plans for the company’s two other businesses. The company plans to have 5,000 chain stores in five years, and increase its distribution centers in the region to 15.

The company is learning from many international giants to develop its business, said Abla. For its retail business, it is looking at the business models of companies like Walmart.

As for the food sector, the company is looking at companies like Nestle and McDonalds, said Abla.

Abla believes his company will benefit a lot from the central government’s moves to boost Xinjiang’s economy. “I am confident about the future.”

He added that the company is also starting work on a possible listing within the next five years.

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“We’re still on track,” Noel Shield, interim chief executive officer of Ghanim International Foods, said on the plan for the brand’s export launch. He said the company is gearing up for its first major retail launch in Asia in the first week of October.

“It’s with a major retailer,” he said but declined to specify the company involved as details of the contracts are still being finalised.

Products under the Brunei Halal Brand will be sold in local outlets after Ghanim’s Hari Raya hamper programme is complete sometime in September, Shield added.

Ghanim was appointed by His Majesty’s Government to handle and manage the marketing of Brunei’s premium halal brand which takes advantage of the country’s reputation in selling goods to growing Muslim markets.

Hamper packages went on sale at The Mall earlier this year. Ghanim wanted to test the waters for the products in its home market.

“Sales were reasonably steady, that’s all, but we never really anticipated sales to start until Ramadhan anyway,” he said, adding that traditionally what happens is most of the purchases are made in the last few weeks of Ramadhan. He declined to specify sales figures but did admit there had been a fair few sales made.

“There’s been a lot of interest and a lot of promises made also. A lot of companies have shown interest, but again, most of them don’t make their final decisions until a week out (and) everything’s going as planned.”

The products are currently being shipped into the nation, with 90 per cent of the hamper items coming from producers overseas. Shield had previously said that some products under the Brunei Halal Brand are being manufactured in countries, such as China and Spain, but producers had to meet strict production guidelines of the brand.

Dato’ Seri Jamil Bidin, chief executive and managing director of Malaysia’s Halal Industry Development Corp, previously said that Brunei should make use of the resources it has.

“Brunei may not have much natural resources, but it has a lot of capabilities in terms of financial resources. You don’t really need to produce the products in your own country.

Go to countries which have a lot of resources. For example, Brunei buying a farm in Australia, and through this collaboration, you can work with people in those countries to produce halal products.”

Asked if Ghanim would be resuming its hunt for a chief executive officer, Shield said they had begun the search but would be looking at local talent for the job.

“We’ve started to look for management trainees from Brunei who can be trained (and) mentored, to eventually take CEO roles within various companies under the Ghanim brand, as well as in other countries.”

It will be a training process, he added, noting they would be pushing for local talent to take the helm of the Ghanim and would no longer be headhunting foreign talent. “We’ve made the decision that we’ll take the management trainees, all Bruneians, and we will put them through training courses, mentor them (and) we might send them overseas to do some courses.” There would also be opportunities to work in companies associated with the Brunei Halal Brand, he added.- Courtesy of The Brunei Times

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