Japan: company ensures high quality rice is halal for Muslims

ODATE, AKITA PREF. – A group of small companies has launched a program to offer the Akita Komachi variety of rice to Muslim visitors to Japan, hoping to export the high-quality grain to Islamic nations in the future.

The program began after Feed Innovation Inc., a food venture business in Odate, Akita Prefecture, and Hosana Kikaku, a farming corporation in the city, had their rice production methods certified as halal, or complying with Islamic law, last August.

It was the first and so far only halal certification of rice in Japan, according to the companies.

“We want Muslim tourists coming to Japan to know the good taste of Akita Komachi,” said Koki Sato, 29, president of Feed Innovation.

Halal is an Arabic word meaning “permitted” or “lawful,” and halal food is free from ingredients banned by Islamic law, such as alcohol and pork. To receive certification, an application is filed with a designated Islamic organization for inspection of its production and processing systems.

Feed Innovation, which produces and markets organic farm products, started selling rice harvested last autumn in packages with a halal certification mark. It currently supplies small packages of halal rice to Japanese airports with international routes, as well as in larger quantities to hotels and inns.

The company expects to ship at least 20 tons of halal rice this season. It also hopes to begin exports in the near future to Indonesia and other Southeast Asian nations where Japanese cuisine is popular.

According to the Halal Japan Business Association, an increasing number of Japanese companies are winning halal certification for their food products in the wake of Tokyo’s selection to host the 2020 Summer Olympic Games and UNESCO’s decision to add traditional Japanese cuisine to its Intangible Cultural Heritage list.

There are an estimated 1.9 billion Muslims in the global population of about 7.2 billion. Some demographic experts forecast that Muslims will account for one-third of the world population by 2050.

Japanese companies are pinning high hopes on the growing Islamic market as the domestic market will continue to shrink as a result of the aging population and dwindling birthrate.

The pursuit of halal authorization is not a “temporary boom,” an association official said.

Sato of Feed Innovation underscored the importance of mapping out marketing strategies to make the best use of halal authorization.

“We hope to promote Japanese halal food items overseas,” he said.

Source: Japan Times

Expand Export Of Malaysian Halal Products Using Pakistan As Platform, Says Council

Malaysian companies should make Pakistan a platform to expand the export of halal-based products to the Middle East and Central Asia.

This can be done by utilising its abundant resources, said the Pakistan-Malaysia Business Council chairman, M. Bashir Janmohammed.

Pakistan is ranked fifth globally for milk production, has the second largest rock salt reserves, is the third largest in mango production and the tenth largest for Mandarin orange production, with an animal population of over 110 million for cattle, buffaloes, sheep, goats, camels, among others.

Bashir was confident that Malaysian companies, with their expertise in processing and packaging, an efficient supply chain and well known marketing skills, can jointly captitalise on Pakistan's unique geographical location.

"Pakistan can serve as a perfect corridor to expand the business in the halal sector," he told Bernama, after a meeting with Plantation Industries and Commodities Minister, Datuk Amar Douglas Uggah Embas here last night.

Uggah is leading a palm oil promotion mission to Pakistan and Iran from January 14 to 22.

He is accompanied by Malaysian Palm Oil Council (MPOC) Chairman, Datuk Lee Yeow Chor, Malaysian Palm Oil Board Director-General, Datuk Dr Choo Yuen May and MPOC Chief Executive Officer, Tan Sri Dr Yusof Basiron.

Bashir also invited Malaysian companies to Pakistan and search for potential joint ventures in various industrial sectors, including ship breaking, pharmaceuticals, palm oil refining, food processing, sports goods and in the
construction sector.

"We also need urgent help in the exploration and production of gas as well as projects in the energy sector," he said.

To date, Malaysian companies have invested in Pakistan in an oil refinery, a liquid cargo terminal, bulking installation of edible oil storage, rice, energy, the infrastructure sector and oil exploration.

On trade, Bashir pointed out that it is crucial to create an awareness of the trade opportunities for the business community of both countries, and maximise on each other's potential to take advantage of the Free Trade
Agreement sealed in November 2007.

Bilateral trade has been on an uptrend since 2007, moving from US$1.362 billion (RM4.49 billion) to touch USUS$2.8 billion in 2011.

Unfortunately, the bilateral trade saw a decline of 24.8% in 2012 to US$2.11 billion, with exports from Pakistan amounting to US$252.89 million and imports from Malaysia at around US$1.86 billion.

Bashir said the balance of trade has been a negative for Pakistan for over a decade and requiring a narrow-down, while increasing Pakistan's exports to Malaysia.

"There is a need to address the trade imbalance by diversifying trade products besides palm oil.

"This can be done by increasing the volume of exports of non-basmati rice, halal food products and frozen seafood to Malaysia. This is given the sizeable demand and fact that Malaysia imports such products from neighbouring countries," he added.

At a dinner with over 30 Pakistani captains of industry, hosted by the Pakistan-Malaysia Business Council last night, Uggah in his speech said:

"Some of the issues raised by the council are under my portfolio and some under other ministries.

"But my responsibility is to take these issues back home for us to consider and improve our trade and investment relations,".

He also expressed hope that the Pakistani business community would realise that Malaysia's population currently stood at around 29 million – slightly higher than that of Karachi – and therefore, purchasing capacity was limited.

He also invited the Pakistani business community to consider Malaysia as a launching pad to penetrate the South East Asian market, home to 500 million people.

Source: Malaysian Digest

Halal Soap

Muhammad Zubair Mughal

zubair.mughal@halalrc.org

The relation between soap and human is as old as the history of culture. Soap has always been the part of civilized society in different shapes either in the shape of Soil collection or mixture of tree leaves and vegetables or mixture of ash and oils while, presently, it comes up with the unique blend of various chemical components, as it is known as liquid soap, beauty soap, toilet soaps and antibacterial soaps etc which is the dire need of each house. As per a careful estimate, about 6 billion people of the world use soap daily and this number is prominently increasing day by day.

But current chemical components and scientific developments have raised differnt questions about the Halal authenticity of soap and have evidently proved the involvement of non Halal ingredients i.e. Tallow extracted from the fat of swine, chemical from the haram animals’ flow “Satiric Acid” which is obtained from Lards and all this mixture and blending have distinguished between the division of Halal and haram. While in Islam the matter of Halal and Haram is not only confined to foods rather it is also applied on services (Islamic Banking, Islamic mode of businesses and Islamic Finance etc), clothes and tangible items such as Cosmetics, Soap and Paint  etc. When man enters in the category of impurity by touching some haram animals and it becomes mandatory to have shower (Ghusal), then now would it be justified to take bath while using the soaps which is produced with chemicals from the ingredients obtained from same animals? Will his worship be accepted after using that soap? 

Hence, it is needed that we should discriminate Halal and Haram in tangible (consumable) items along with food and services. We buy and adopt with joy the leather made imported items such as shoes and hand bags imported from Italy and other countries but do we ever think of the ingredients used in those products and the skin of the animal which was used in those products? Whether the Halal animals are utilized in those countries? If “No” then which animal’s skin was used as leather? Which chemicals are used in dying processing of towel that we use to clean the face. Is it obtained from swine’s Fat? Which chemicals are used in our paint industry etc? These are the matters of deep concentration that I leave on the readers who need to make the efforts to avoid haram a part of our life. The prime objective of this piece of writing is not to put the Muslims into the fear rather to highlight the issues caused by latest chemical evolution. If we analyze the current volume of cosmetics industry globally which is about US $ 335 billion but share of Halal cosmetics is US $ 13 billion while our, Muslim, population is about 1.6 billion which is the 26% of whole world population, so, as per these figures

non-Halal cosmetics have more consumption in Muslim countries and the main reason behind it is the lack of awareness and no discrimination between Halal and haram in material items. May Allah (Subhana wa’a Taala’a) forgive us for the sins caused by lack of awareness and give us enough strength to avoid them in future (Ameen). 

Halal Research Council (HRC), keeping in view the social, religious and professional responsibilities, inaugurated a specialized department for state of the art research in Soaps, Cosmetics, Dyeing and Paint Chemical to resolve the problems in these industries through in depth research to give a clean and purified society to the Muslim world. 

Halal Soap