The National Assembly on Monday passed a bill to establish the Pakistan Halal Authority for the promotion of trade in Halal food products in the international food market.
Moved by Minister for Science and Technology Rana Tanveer Hussain, the bill envisions purposes of imports and exports with foreign countries and inter-provincial trade and commerce in all such products and processes which are described or represented as being Halal.
The bill estimates the existence of a huge international market of Halal business worth trillions of dollars, bulk of which is taken away by non-Muslim countries.
The scope of the Halal sector covers a wide range of items such as food, pharmaceutical, health, food supplements and toiletries, id added.
“Pakistan, being a Muslim country, is taking only a nominal share of this huge export potential due to non-existence of a legal and recognized entity/authority at the national level dealing with the Halal sector.”
The proposed Pakistan Halal Authority will be tasked with recommending “Halal standards for government-notified articles and processes for adoption by a national standards body in accordance with comprehensive guidelines of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC)”.
