10 million Indonesian products targeted for free halal certification this year
Less than a quarter of the target reached with half the year gone.
Jakarta: The Indonesian government aims to issue free halal certificates for 10 million products through the self-declared scheme in 2022, yet by the year’s mid-point, less than 1 million small medium and microenterprises (SMMEs) have joined the scheme.
The Ministry of Religious Affairs Halal Product Assurance Agency (BPJPH) head Muhammad Aqil Irham told Salam Gateway only 867,600 SMMEs had joined the self-declared programme, around 24.1% of this year’s target.
This was significantly off target and not even close to the country’s 64 million SMMEs. He said achieving the 10 million product target this year, required participation from 3.6 million SMMEs each registering two or three products.
“The government still needs to push more to achieve this,” he said.
Various methods are being conducted to accelerate the achievement including collaboration with related ministries and institutions and conducting roadshows on halal certification knowledge-sharing in universities.
The agency continually encourages SMMEs to immediately certify their products through the self-declared scheme to increase their global competitiveness.
“Currently there are many SMMEs who still think it is not important to have halal certification. In fact, apart from being a guarantee for the community, this certification is an entry point if you want to enter global competition,” Irham added.
Another strategy is the free halal certification programme called sehati through which the government issued halal certificates to 3,200 SMMEs in 2020 and 15,000 last year. This year, from the 25,000 SMMEs targeted for halal certification, only 14,194 have registered.
In the long run, the government aims for 1 million SMMEs to be halal certified through the sehati programme.
Meanwhile, LPPOM MUI, one of BPJPH’s halal inspection agency partners, noted there are 10,643 SMMEs to date that have been inspected through them.
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