Sources told ABC that the halal certifying bodies allowed by the Indonesian government charge 300 per cent more than other companies.
Halal foods are those allowed to eat by Muslims under the Islamic Shari’ah. Being a predominantly Islamic country, halal certification is an important sign that the foods follow Qur’anic passages.
So far, meat processors and exporters are already complaining about this change, rejecting the few left of halal certifiers’ higher charges.
“It’s come at a bad time, you know, the industry is ready to go forward and put a lot more meat into the Indonesian market, and it’s no good having these hurdles to jump through when processors still today aren’t geared up to send meat into Indonesia,” Campbell Basnett, a trader with Sanger Meat Exports, told ABC Rural.
With this, The Australian Meat Council has already promised that it will work on resolving this issue, saying it will start dialogues with both the Australian and the Indonesian government to solve the budding issue and help further the meat industry of the country.
