Over the past two years, plant-based food consumption has grown by 49% across the EU, reaching a total sales volume of €3.6 billion.
Malaysia places high hopes on joint halal certification with Indonesia
2025-05-15
Malaysia is highly optimistic about the implementation of a joint halal certification plan with Indonesia, the country with the world’s largest Muslim population, to strengthen halal trade relations between the two countries.
Currently, Indonesia only directly accepts industrial products with Malaysian halal certificates, such as palm oil.
However, Malaysian end products must undergo multiple tests to obtain another Halal certificate from the Indonesian Religious Council (MUI) and a Halal logo from the Indonesian Food and Drug Administration (BPOM) before entering the Indonesian market.
To address this issue, Malaysian and Indonesian authorities are reviewing their halal certifications to avoid inefficiencies in import and export operations in the long run.
“We have been working closely together because we want to sell more products to Indonesia and, of course, we also welcome Indonesian products to Malaysia,” Malaysia’s Minister of International Trade and Industry Mustapa Mohamed told reporters outside the Malaysia International Halal Exhibition and Conference (MIHAS) 2017 in Kuala Lumpur on Wednesday.
“There are still unresolved issues. The Indonesian authorities recognise our halal certificate, but our people have to go through some additional testing.”
Muti Arintawati, deputy director of Indonesia's MUI LPPOM, said she has plans to simplify halal certification for Malaysian end-products imported into Indonesia.
“We may not need to conduct audits at the production sites. Instead, we can just audit the documents for these products. However, this plan has not yet been officially approved,” Muti told The Jakarta Post in a telephone interview on Friday.
Last August, Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak said he was committed to boosting trade between the two neighbouring countries to $30 billion in the near future.
According to data from the Indonesian Ministry of Trade, the total trade volume between Malaysia and Indonesia fell from US$24 billion in 2013 to US$14.31 billion in 2016 during the global economic crisis.
“Indonesia is very big, of course, it’s a big market. The problem is that there are some technical issues when it comes to halal certification,” Abu Bakar Koyakutty, senior director of market access and international cooperation at Malaysia External Trade Development Corp., told The Jakarta Post in an interview on Tuesday.
“There are different standards for what is considered halal. If we can resolve this issue, we will see great potential for future market development.”
According to a 2016 study published by Salaam Gateway, a business intelligence platform that is a joint effort between the Dubai Islamic Economy Development Centre and intelligence research agency Thomson Reuters, one problem it faces is that there is no single standard for halal regulation globally.
For example, it states that there are significant differences in the quantitative standards of the Department of Standards Malaysia implemented in Malaysia and the UAE Authority Standards implemented in the UAE.
"The need to obtain multiple certifications to meet the needs of different markets increases the complexity of trade and may prevent the import of products, resulting in a failure to meet the demand for halal food among Muslim consumers," the report said.
The report also noted that the halal audit process is slow and limited, making third-party certification feasible.
To compound this problem, halal certification bodies have yet to sign specific mutual recognition agreements for halal certificates, and there is no forum or framework to ensure peer review.
Halal audit operations currently operate independently of one another, often with limited clarity over auditors’ jurisdiction.
Meanwhile, Thomson Reuters and research consultancy firm Sils Ehrlich estimated the size of the Islamic economy at $3 trillion in its 2016/2017 State of the Global Islamic Economy report.
In 2015, Muslims spent $1.1 trillion on food and beverages, with $415 billion of their budget revenue coming from halal-certified food and beverage products.