Seminar highlights benefits of halal accreditation

PESHAWAR: An awareness raising seminar arranged here on Tuesday highlighted the need, importance and benefits of halal accreditation.

The Pakistan National Accreditation Council (PNAC), which worked under the Ministry of Science and Technology, had hosted the function. Collaboration was struck with Federation of Pakistan Chamber of Commerce and industries and Pakistan Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (PCSIR), Peshawar. The theme was “Halal Accreditation; A Gateway to International Trade”. Stakeholders from regulatory bodies, certification bodies, industries professionals from different market segments like food, pharmaceutical, textile, cosmetics, tourism attended the seminar.

The chief guest was Senator Gulam Ali who is also vice-president of the SARC Chamber. Ismat Gul Khattak Director-General, PNAC, Secretary Agriculture Israr Khan, Fareedullah Khan Khattak, DG, PCSIR spoke at the inaugural session. The PNAC director the general said despite being a Muslim country, Pakistan share in global halal the market was negligible while non-Muslims were benefitting from the trillion dollars global halal market. Senator Gulam Ali said that Pakistan should learn from the experiences of Turkey and Malaysia to know how they developed their economy by focusing on standardization.

He said the demand for halal market and industry is growing at a fast pace all around the world, adding development initiative, strategies, and controlling mechanism were essential for the promotion of the Halal economy in Pakistan. Omar Qureshi Project Director, Abdus Sami, Deputy Director, and Farooq Azam Khan, Deputy Director from PNAC gave presentations on different topics of Halal Accreditation. Sharia Advisor Maulana Syedul Arifeen talked on the fundamentals of halal.