| Thailand expected to become ‘Halal hub’
New IT system to control production, quality and global marketing
Chulalongkorn
University’s Halal Science Centre has joined regional company Halal
Global Services to develop a Halal Super Highway to promote Halal foods
and products in both domestic and global markets.
As a
result, Thailand is expected to become a Halal logistics hub – or
so-called Hogistics Hub – for the Southeast Asia region before the end
of next year.
Winai Dahlan, director of the Halal
Science Centre, said the super highway would use information technology
to administer and manage product quality control from farm to table in
order to create consumer confidence and reduce the cost of logistics.
It would also increase productivity of Halal foods and products.
He
said the super highway would be a one-stop service to facilitate the
production and marketing of qualified Halal goods. A high-speed
Internet database will be used to manage and control production
processes to a high standard of quality, safety and accuracy.
International standards and marketing demands will be applied from
the
sourcing of raw materials through production, storage, packaging and
transportation to delivery, and every stage will be checkable.
The
new super highway is expected to become a logistics centre for Halal
foods and products within next year, making Thailand a hub for exports
and imports of Halal products between Asean countries and the rest of
the world.
“The Halal Super Highway and Hogistics Centre
will have benefits for Thailand by reducing the cost of logistics. We
will be able to use IT to support the supply and value chains from raw
materials through production processes to consumers, and this will
increase Thailand’s competitive advantage,” Winai said.
Halal
Global Services’ managing director Supachai Keowsiri said his company
would develop an information infrastructure to support and promote
Hal-Q accredited Halal foods and products on both domestic and global
markets. Hal-Q stands for hygiene, assurance, liability and quality of
Halal food. It comes with Halal-GMP (Halal – good manufacturing
practices) and Halal-HACCP (Halal – hazard analysis critical control
point). The standards and food safety systems guarantee hygienic Halal
food for Islamic consumers.
The company also has a role
as a distribution channel for Thai Halal foods and products via
e-business transactions or e-commerce, inviting orders from consumers
around the world via the Internet.
“I think the
Hogistics hub will have an important role in new business transactions
because it will welcome more than 1.8 billion Muslims from 50
countries, allowing customers to order Thai Halal foods and products
with high quality standards in a worldwide e-trade environment.
Consumers and suppliers will also be able to check on their purchases
and track information,” he said.
The global Halal market
for products and services is worth more than US$330 billion (Bt11.67
trillion) per year, and includes major components in the EU and US. At
present, Thailand has less than a 1 per cent share of this market, so
it will benefit from becoming a Halal logistics hub for Southeast Asia,
distributing Thai Halal foods and products to global markets, Supachai
said.
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