KUALA LUMPUR, May 4 (Bernama) — Malaysian exports of
halal food products to the Organisation of Islamic Conference (OIC)
member countries, is estimated to rise to US$900 million this year,
with increasing demand.
In 2007, Malaysian exports to the OIC member countries recorded
about US$640 million, the Minister of International Trade and Industry
Datuk Mustapa Mohamed said today.
He said among the OIC countries, Malaysia, Indonesia, Turkey and
Saudi Arabia are the four largest open economies, with a substantially
large external trade volume.
“While intra-OIC trade is still low, I am very confident that
given the higher awareness level and growing demand for halal products
and services globally, Malaysia will register a significant increase in
trade in the future,” he said in his keynote address at the opening of
the Fourth World Halal Forum (WHF) here today.
The WHF 2009, organised by KasehDia Sdn Bhd, is an annual forum
which gathers specialists’ and experts from various industries.This
year it has attracted over 1,500 delegates.
Mustapa said the size of the halal food market for Malaysia is estimated to be US$8.2 billion this year.
He also highlighted that trade in halal products is one of the fastest growing business sectors in the country.
According to Mustapa, the existing market size of global halal food is huge.
“But research indicates that global trade of halal food products represents less than 10 percent of the market.
“The current global Muslim population stands at 1.8 billion.This
represents 28 percent of the total world population. However, the total
global halal food market is significantly lower at 16 percent compared
to the size of the global food market, meaning there is a significant
gap.
“Among the reasons for this is that most Muslim countries,
especially those in Asia and Africa, still rely on basic and
non-tradeable food products which are largely supplied locally and not
internationally traded.
“Besides that, each halal market is not similar and fragmented by
ethnicity, location, income and a few other determinants, making it
difficult to see better growth in the global halal food market,”
Mustapa said.
However, he pointed out that the global halal food market which is
estimated to be worth US$635 billion, had high potential not only
within Muslim but also non-Muslim countries.
He said there was a substantial increase in halal food from the
non-Muslim countries and this is reflected in the European market
alone, at US$67 billion.
Mustapa added that a strong partnership and collaboration between
OIC members was needed to ensure Muslim countries benefit from the
growth in the global halal market with the gap being narrowed further.
— BERNAMA
