The Philippines is set to enter the trillion-dollar market for halal products as it becomes the first non-Muslim country to adopt harmonized halal product standards.
The harmonized halal product standards are set by the Organization of Islamic Cooperation-Standards and Metrology Institute for Islamic Countries (OIC-SMIIC) and will allow the country to trade in the halal product market.
Halal in Islam are things that are permitted and that comply with Sharia law. When the SMIIC finalizes the halal standards that will be accepted in all 57 member states of the OIC, Filipino products would be able to enter the trillion-dollar market and export Filipino goods to these 57 Muslim nations.
DOST Region 12 director Haja Shayma Zenaida Laidan told media, “The OIC-SMIIC is a big organization, second to the United Nations. If you can just imagine that, 57 countries who will be buying your product. You can penetrate these 57 Islamic countries’ market.”
The Department of Science and Technology is ready to adopt halal standards as the “DOST Region 12 has a laboratory in Cotabato City that is fully equipped with state-of-the-art equipment facilities to conduct DNA test and other tests to check food and other processed food items for haram or forbidden contaminants and identify truly halal products,” Laidan added.
The SMIIC is in the last stages of drawing up its halal standards that will make the Philippines the first non-Muslim country to adopt harmonized halal product standards.
