Malaysia Seeks to Turn Halal Certification Into a Bigger Export Engine

KUALA LUMPUR, Sept. 25, 2026 — Malaysia has spent decades building one of the world’s most established systems for halal certification and governance. Its next challenge is more commercial: getting more of the companies operating within that system to sell beyond the country’s borders.

That question was at the center of the opening of the Global Halal Summit and the Malaysia International Halal Showcase, or MIHAS, on Friday, when the government announced new initiatives aimed at linking halal standards and certification more closely with international trade.

The timing was significant. Malaysia is targeting about RM80 billion in halal exports by 2030, but Deputy Prime Minister Ahmad Zahid Hamidi said only about 14.7 percent of halal-certified companies currently export. He also said the halal industry contributes about 11 percent of Malaysia’s gross domestic product.

The figures point to a gap between the scale of Malaysia’s halal ecosystem and the number of companies that have managed to turn certification into overseas business.

“Certification is only the beginning of that journey,” Ahmad Zahid said at the opening ceremony. He said companies also need consistent production, appropriate packaging, working capital, reliable logistics and an understanding of their target markets.

Malaysia’s response is to build more links between the institutions responsible for halal governance and those responsible for promoting exports.

One of the principal initiatives announced Friday was the Malaysia Halal Global Nexus, or MHGN, developed through cooperation between the Department of Islamic Development Malaysia, known as JAKIM, and the Malaysia External Trade Development Corporation, or MATRADE.

Under the initiative, JAKIM contributes its role in halal governance and standards, while MATRADE provides expertise in international trade promotion. The stated objective is to expand international markets, strengthen industry networks and increase global confidence in the integrity of Malaysia’s halal system.

The government also announced the establishment of a Malaysia-Indonesia Halal Council, creating a bilateral mechanism focused initially on making halal certification easier between the two countries.

The council will be chaired by Indonesia’s Halal Product Assurance Organising Agency, or BPJPH, while Malaysia will serve as secretary-general. Its first meeting is scheduled for October, with the initial focus on facilitating halal certification and bilateral halal trade.

The arrangement builds on a memorandum of cooperation signed by Malaysia and Indonesia in 2023. Ahmad Zahid said bilateral negotiations on facilitating halal certification and trade were concluded in June. The stated purpose of the new council is to address differences in requirements and reduce repeated procedures faced by companies seeking to enter each other’s markets.

For businesses, that distinction matters. A halal certificate establishes compliance with a halal standard; it does not by itself solve the commercial problems involved in entering another country’s market.

The Malaysian government’s emphasis on those practical barriers was one of the more revealing aspects of Friday’s announcements. Ahmad Zahid said smaller manufacturers need a clearer route to overseas buyers and that halal-certified companies need support in fulfilling their first export orders.

MIHAS provided an immediate measure of the trade activity Malaysia is seeking to expand.

The 22nd edition of the exhibition is being held at the Malaysia International Trade and Exhibition Centre in Kuala Lumpur from Sept. 23 to 26. MATRADE said before the event that it expected 50,000 visitors from 45 countries, with 1,700 companies and 2,400 booths. Its International Sourcing Programme was expected to facilitate 4,000 meetings involving 450 international buyers and about 600 Malaysian exporters.

By Friday, Ahmad Zahid said MIHAS had recorded US$1.2 billion in sales during its first two days. Malaysia’s public broadcaster RTM reported the figure as RM5.2 billion.

Those figures describe activity during the exhibition rather than Malaysia’s annual halal exports, and they should not be treated as equivalent measures. But they illustrate the role the government wants MIHAS to play as a marketplace connecting Malaysian businesses with international buyers.

The exhibition has also expanded beyond its traditional trade-show format. MATRADE introduced an AI-based system for MIHAS 2026 designed to help registered participants discover businesses, connect with exhibitors, arrange meetings and navigate the exhibition.

The broader Global Halal Summit, meanwhile, has brought regulators, certification bodies, industry participants, academics and professionals together around issues including certification, technical capacity and the development of the wider halal ecosystem. The official GHaS program shows that the summit’s opening ceremony took place at MITEC on Sept. 25, following several days of certification, technical and networking programs in Putrajaya.

Taken together, the announcements at the two events suggest that Malaysia’s current policy emphasis extends beyond adding more certified businesses.

The immediate objective is to make existing halal infrastructure more useful to companies seeking international customers — by improving institutional cooperation, reducing certification-related friction between markets and connecting Malaysian standards with trade-promotion networks.

The longer-term target is considerably larger.

Malaysia wants to raise halal exports to RM80 billion by 2030. Yet the government’s own figure that only 14.7 percent of halal-certified companies currently export shows the scale of the task: expanding the number of companies that can move from domestic certification to sustained international sales.

Friday’s opening therefore produced more than another showcase for Malaysia’s halal credentials. It laid out a series of measures intended to connect those credentials to the harder business of exporting.

Whether those measures produce a substantially larger number of internationally active Malaysian halal companies will depend on what happens after the ceremonies — in certification offices, factories, logistics networks, financing arrangements and, ultimately, negotiations between Malaysian suppliers and overseas buyers.