PH needs to do more to capture $2.3-T global ‘halal’ market

The Philippines needs to further improve its capacity to capture the economic potentials of the US$2.3-trillion halal market especially that 10 percent of the Philippines population belongs to Muslim community and this is expected to grow more.

Dennis M. Guerrero, Undersecretary of the Department of Agriculture, said the country as well as the entire ASEAN region must address the need to capture the promising global halal economy, which is currently appraised to be worth US$2.3 trillion. Of this, halal food makes up around US$700 billion.

In his speech at the 12th ASEAN Expert Group Meeting on halal food held in the country, he expressed that the halal development effort is not only aimed to respect the belief, rights and customs of Muslim community, which represents around 10.4 million out of 102 million Philippines population.

He also pointed out that ASEAN is the host of 62 percent of the world’s Muslim population, making it very relevant for halal development.

Guerrero said ASEAN region, especially the Philippines, need to strengthen, align, and consolidate efforts towards strong certification systems to maximize the market potentials of halal products in the region and in the world.

For his part, Davino Catbagan, Chairperson of the Halal Food Industry Development Program in Philippines, said Philippines already has a strong commitment to develop its halal sector.

He emphasized that despite the slow pick up, the Philippine government already adopted four Philippines National Standards (PNS) for Halal, namely halal Agriculture and Fishery Products, Code of Halal Slaughtering Practices for Ruminants, Code of Halal Slaughtering Practices for Poultry and Halal Animal and Aqua Feeds.

During the 12th meeting of ASEAN Working Group on Halal food (AWGHF), the progress and other project-related activities allotted for halal food industry was discussed.

The three-day closed door meeting was facilitated and organized by the country's Bureau of Agriculture and Fisheries Standards (BAFS) halal food secretariat.

The said meeting was attended by the representatives from Brunei Darussalam, Cambodia, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, and Vietnam.

The 13 th AWGHF Meeting in accordance to the protocol shall be held in Singapore.