China's Halal Industry Accelerates Its Push into the International Market This Year

The China (Qinghai) International Halal Food and Products Exhibition, which attracted exhibitors and attendees from 37 countries and regions, recently came to a close. The total amount of on-site transactions, contracts, orders and intended signings at the exhibition reached US$610 million, up 22% from the previous edition. It added 7 countries and regions compared with the previous edition, and international booths grew by 25% accordingly.

Many participating domestic enterprises expressed their wish to open up international markets. Attendees and experts at home and abroad generally believe that the 'pie' of the global Halal product consumer market is getting bigger and bigger, and China should accelerate its push into the international market to seize business opportunities.

As a region where Muslims gather, western China has certain advantages in Halal product exports, and many provinces and regions aim to break into the international market through exports. For example, in Qinghai, increasing Halal product exports has become a development goal for many localities and enterprises; in Ningxia, the world's largest Hui Muslim settlement, developing the Halal industry has become an important breakthrough for 'opening up to the west.'

Currently, the world's Muslim population has exceeded 1.5 billion, and the international Halal food market has enormous development potential. According to statistics, global Halal food trade exceeded US$650 billion last year and will grow rapidly in the coming years; however, China's annual Halal food export value is currently not high.

Samira, a researcher at Iran's Halal Research Center, said that many Halal countries rely heavily on imports for Halal food, and China, as the 'world's processing plant,' has the strength to become a base for Halal food processing and production.

Wang Xihui, president of the Qinghai Provincial Council for the Promotion of Trade, said that western China has good ethnic and resource advantages, and also has obvious geographical advantages in the 'Silk Road Economic Belt.' Given the current production capacity of the Halal industry in the western region, it can achieve exports and become bigger and stronger.

Regarding how China's Halal products can leverage their advantages and increase exports, Li Ziran, director of the Halal Industry Research Institute at Ningxia University, analyzed that although China's Halal industry has developed rapidly in recent years, it still falls short of integrating with the international market; its own industry is scattered, and it is difficult to break through on international Halal certification standards, so product exports were once blocked.

Li Wenming, one of the founders of the 'Halal Food Exhibition' and head of the Trade Promotion Center of the China Council for the Promotion of International Trade, told reporters that the reasons hindering China's Halal industry from sharing the international market's 'big pie' mainly include: domestic Halal food enterprises are small in scale, have low brand awareness, and lack leading enterprises, which restricts their export capacity.

The Halal industry has not leveraged its own advantages. Li Wenming believes China should learn from Malaysia, attach importance to strengthening brand building, improve technical standards and management, fully leverage the advantages of abundant raw materials and low labor costs, and accelerate seizing the international market.

In addition, many Chinese Halal industry entrepreneurs said that if they can break through the certification barrier, they would very much like to open the door to the international market.

Experts noted that to solve the long-standing problem of China's Halal products being difficult to gain recognition in the international market, the State Ethnic Affairs Commission is taking the lead in formulating a 'China Halal Product Certification Standard.' While the 'national standard' is being formulated, the Legislative Affairs Office of the State Council is drafting the 'Halal Food Management Regulations.'

Wang Xihui said: 'Accelerating Halal product exports requires the joint support of various government departments, as well as the cooperation of enterprises.' Heads of some leading Halal food export enterprises emphasized that expanding the international market requires solid 'fundamentals' - while ensuring product quality, strengthening technical investment and market research to match production with sales.

'China has a profound culinary cultural heritage, and we hope that more and more elements from China will soon appear in the world's Halal food,' said Mohamed Ben Salah, economic and trade counselor of the Tunisian Embassy in China.