BPJPH Prepares Six Strategies to Achieve Halal Certification Goals

The Indonesian Halal Product Assurance Agency (BPJPH) of the Ministry of Religious Affairs announced on Tuesday that it would implement six measures to accelerate its goal of making Indonesia the world’s number one halal food and beverage producer by 2024.

To this end, it has set a target of providing 10 million halal product certificates, BPJPH head Aqil Irham said here.

“This year (2023), we have a target of one million free halal certificates. However, we cannot stop there as we have to accelerate (our program) to provide 10 million halal-certified products by 2024,” he said.

His agency will provide training for halal product certification assistants. The training will take place in February and will involve 30,000 assistants.

Another measure will be the implementation of the Halal Canteen Programme to ensure that all food and beverage products sold in canteens in all the ministry’s working units are halal certified.

“We will start (the halal canteen program) at the Ministry of Religious Affairs canteen in Banteng Field and Thamrin (Street), then at the Ministry of Religious Affairs Inspectorate General in Cipete and the BPJPH canteen in Pinang Ranti,” the BPJPH chief said.

In addition, he said, his party would also strengthen inter-ministerial and institutional partnerships to achieve the goal.

Another measure is to facilitate the implementation of halal product certification in cooperation with various stakeholders.

“We had met with 22 ministries/agencies and committed to preparing a budget to facilitate self-declaration and regular (halal) certification. This partnership program also needs to be implemented in all regions,” said Irham.

Meanwhile, the fifth measure is to conduct the mandatory halal certification campaign in one thousand locations in the 34 provinces of Indonesia.

The BPJPH will also continuously monitor the progress of the program’s implementation.

The BPJPH head noted that monitoring is key to achieving the certification goal, and therefore requires the involvement of all stakeholders.

“There must be no one who is not aware of the mandatory halal certification,” he stressed.

The six measures were also discussed in detail at the “National Coordination Meeting for Monitoring of Halal Product Assurance”, which will be held from 30 January to 1 February 2023.