WAM/MOHD AAMIR
DUBAI, 22nd December, 2019 (WAM) — The credibility of the International Halal Accreditation Forum, IHAF, the world’s first halal accreditation network, has been further strengthened as the number of countries and international organisations joining its halal standardisation initiative continues to increase.
The forum has been actively discussing implementing the means to decrease trade barriers in the halal ecosystem by working with 37 recognised accreditation bodies, representing 34 countries, and the number continues to grow.
Regarding this growth, Secretary-General of IHAF, said, “The objective of IHAF has been to create an ecosystem that can trade goods with no barriers across the globe. This empowers traders from member countries, since the goods that are traded are guaranteed halal, as per the unified standards. This act of unification is vital to ensure the continuous prosperity of halal trade globally, and protects the integrity of the entire halal value chain. With this, we are looking forward to further forging partnerships and advocating unifying halal standards worldwide.”
As per the report from State of the Global Islamic Economy Report 2019/2020, four of the top five halal exporting countries – Brazil, Australia, Sudan and India – are IHAF members. Moreover, the top five out of 10 countries, which are global Islamic economic indicators of halal food in the world – the UAE, Brazil, Australia, Sudan and Pakistan–are also recognised as IHAF members.
IHAF is also entering into technical cooperation agreements with different organisations, and believes that standardising halal accreditation worldwide is essential to easily establish which products are genuinely halal.
The current member countries of IHAF include: Argentina, Australia, Belarus, Brazil, Bulgaria, Columbia, Costa Rica, Egypt, Hungary, India, Indonesia, Italy, Jamaica, Japan, Jordan, Kazakhstan, Kuwait, Kyrgyzstan, Libya, Mexico, Morocco, New Zealand, Nigeria, Pakistan, the Philippines, the Republic of Korea, Russia, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, Spain, Sudan, Thailand, the United Arab Emirates, the United Kingdom and the United States of America.
