Halal Awakening for the Middle East

HalalJournal:The next time fate takes you to Dubai in United Arab Emirates take a stroll into the Jawhara Hotel Apartments, where they provide “a pure Halal atmosphere”, according to its senior sales manager Munir Ahmed.

Here, “we don't allow alcohol,” Munir says, “and right from the cleaning of the hotel up to the accounting, we follow everything according to Islamic and Halal concept.” He added that the hotel aims to give guests “a taste of the Islamic concept, how the people of Islam entertain their guests, welcome them and take care of them.”

More evidence of Halal tourism taking off in the Middle East is when chairman of international hotel chain Almulla Hospitality, Abdullah Mohamed Almulla announced a hefty budget of US$ 2 billion to beef up their branding as the world’s first Shariah and Halal compliant chain of international hotel.

Not just in tourism, the mainstream beauty industry is also focusing their attention to the hijab wearing population of Arabia, offering stunning Shariah compliant Halal cosmetics. It’s easy to see why when the market for beauty and grooming products as a whole in the Middle East is currently growing at 12 per cent per annum, valued at US$2.1 billion a year.

An estimated total of US$ 150 billion of Halal merchandise are distributed through the Emirates each year, and a large proportion of these are cosmetics and personal care items.

According to Messe Frankfurt, organisers of Beautyworld Middle East, the growth is being mirrored by the demand for Halal personal care products, which in turn is being driven by increased consumer knowledge of the ingredients used and they way they are produced.

It is clear that the spike in interest for Halal tourism and cosmetics are just but a few clear indicators of the increased awareness of Halal in the region. These examples are also clearly a sign of the rate at which the Halal concept is beginning to be appreciated and applied in the Middle East.

Solving Problems of the Ummah

Hoping to reinforce Halal within the souls of the Muslims is one and only organisation that has been able to group all Muslim nations under one umbrella - the Organisation of Islamic Conference (OIC).

To alleviate poverty, which seems to be the most pressing issue for the ummah currently, OIC looks to increasing trade amongst OIC members. Several measures are in place and the most crucial being the setting up of a Trade Negotiating Committee that works to implement the Preferential Trade System (TPS-OIC) by 2009.

TPS-OIC would create a free trade zone covering all Muslim countries, and would put into place a common tariff-sensitive system for intra-OIC trade.

The Islamic Development Bank (IDB) has also established the International Islamic Trade Finance Corporation (IFTC), where it will create a synergy with active export credit corporations and provide medium and long-term programs in financing intra OIC trade.

Another OIC affiliate organisation is taking a different approach. According to the Islamic Chamber of Commerce and Industry, or ICCI, a large percentage of Muslims are either from the middle to upper class, brilliant, possess large tracts of land and/or natural resources and are highly competent in technology.

The problem, or opportunity depending on how one looks at it, is to match the funder with the one with the idea, and the one possessing the land or natural resources to the one with the technology. With this realisation, ICCI hopes to offer the fundamentals of food, commerce and trade in one neat package and get the Muslims out of the conundrum they are in today.

For ICCI, one of their main new initiatives will be Halal.

Accelerating Developments

As an affiliated organ of the OIC representing the private sector of all 57 member Islamic nations, ICCI’s membership comprise of the national unions, federations and chambers of commerce and industry of OIC member countries.

It aims for closer collaboration within the fields of trade, commerce, insurance and reinsurance, shipping and banking, as well as the promotion of investment opportunities and joint ventures in OIC member countries.

ICCI is led by its president Sheikh Saleh Kamel, a highly respected Saudi businessman with varied interests in tourism, media as well as the Islamic banking and finance industry. He was also the chairman and founder of the Dallah al Baraka Group, as well as chairman of the General Council for Islamic Banks.

And judging from recent developments, ICCI will also be looking into the global framework for Halal. Headed by Sheikh Saleh Kamel, ICCI is expected to bring in the OIC support for the establishment of one global Halal standard and accreditation.

To speed up the process, ICCI has already formed a partnership with the International Halal Industry Alliance, or IHI Alliance. As a non-governmental, non-national alliance of Halal stakeholders formed from the resolutions of the first World Halal Forum (WHF 2006), IHI Alliance is seen as the perfect vehicle to push the Halal agenda on a global scale.

To affect and announce this partnership, Sheikh Saleh Kamel will be speaking at the coming World Halal Forum in Kuala Lumpur on May 12 – 13th, 2008, where he is expected to roll out ICCI’s planned programs and intended collaborations to help accelerate the move towards globalising Halal standards and accreditation.

Enter Turkey

ICCI may not be the only party looking to lead the move towards a single global Halal standard. It seems that the Republic of Turkey is also eyeing a piece of the action.

In the last high-level meeting of OIC’s Standing Committee for Economic and Commercial Cooperation (COMCEC) in Istanbul on 14 – 17 November 2007, Turkish minister of state Kursad Tuzmen highlighted how rapid the development has been within the global Halal industry.

He pointed out the emergence of multi-national companies intensifying their ventures to increase percentage in the Halal market. Kursad also warns that as a body representing the Muslims, OIC should accept responsibility of controlling global Halal trade.

This must be done through the setting up of a Halal Food Standard under the auspices of the OIC. In brief, Kursad said, a common standard, logo, accreditation as well as the expedited development of intra-OIC trade through a monitoring body, should be the common goal of all members.

In a report of a workshop conducted on the sidelines of the COMCEC meeting for “Marketing and Packaging of Agro Products”, it emphasised the urgent need to provide continuous training on national and regional levels on areas deemed crucial for controlling trade of the Halal sector.

Such areas include workshops for successfully starting, managing and sustaining small businesses; enhancing capacity in entrepreneurship, human resource, export and international trade, animal product processing technology, as well as marketing and packaging of Halal food, fish and its related byproducts.

The report also suggested that OIC member countries need to realise the true aim of developing a common Halal food standard, which is to provide the much needed international certification benchmark for production of food for the Muslim ummah, even in non Muslim countries.

In short, the developments towards globalising the Halal standard and accreditation is expected to reach feverish pace within the coming years. If things go according to plan, Muslims the world over will one day have a single standard to govern the production of their food, their cosmetics, their leisure, and quite possibly, all other rituals we perform daily as a human being and as a Muslim.

How strong would the ummah be then we wonder…