Jakarta (ANTARA) – The Halal Product Guarantee Organizing Agency (BPJPH) of the Religious Affairs Ministry and the Saudi Food Drug Authority (SFDA) have agreed to form a technical team to deepen cooperation in terms of halal product guarantees (JPH).
The agreement was reached during a bilateral meeting between BPJPH and SFDA, which was held as part of the Makkah Halal Forum 2024 held in Makkah, Saudi Arabia.
“BPJPH and SFDA reached an agreement to form a technical team representing both parties to intensively coordinate to narrow down the scope of halal product guarantee cooperation between Indonesia and Saudi Arabia more specifically,” BPJPH head Aqil Irham said in a statement issued in Jakarta on Friday.
He expressed the hope that the formation of the technical team would increase productivity in both countries through the halal product sector.
“The follow-up synergy between BPJPH and SFDA will certainly have big positive implications for strengthening the halal ecosystem of each country as well as strengthening the role of the halal product sector in increasing the economic value of both countries,” he informed.
According to him, synergy between the two institutions is also important to strengthen the role of the Indonesian halal sector amid the dynamics of the global halal ecosystem, which is becoming increasingly competitive day by day.
In October 2023, the governments of Indonesia and Saudi Arabia officially signed a memorandum of understanding on halal product guarantees.
The signing of the memorandum was carried out by BPJPH head Irham and SFDA CEO Hisham S. Aljadhey. It was witnessed by President Joko Widodo and the Prime Minister of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, Muhammad bin Salman al-Saud, at Yamamah Palace in Riyadh on October 19, 2023.
The scope of the memorandum of understanding includes cooperation in developing conformity assessment procedures, standard specifications, and technical regulations for the issuance of halal certificates.
The cooperation covers mutually recognizing and receiving halal certification for products exported between the two countries; cooperation exchange experiences and sharing of knowledge in the fields of training, research, and laboratory analysis of halal products; and other cooperation based on the memorandum of understanding.
