The Philippine Department of Trade and Industry is preparing a nationwide road map for the halal industry as it gears up to launch an international exhibition next year to showcase its best halal products.
The country has set big targets to expand its domestic halal industry in the hopes of tapping into the global halal market, which is estimated to be worth more than $7 trillion.
“We have established the direction. We are cleared at our goal for the next five years: Raise 230 billion pesos ($4 billion) in investments and generate around 120,000 jobs,” Aleem Guiapal, project manager of the DTI Halal Industry Development Program, said to reporters earlier this week.
According to DTI data, the Philippines has 1,835 of its own halal-certified products and while some of them are already exported, the country still needs to develop its halal branding to enter the global market.
There are some 10 million Muslims among the almost 120 million population of the Southeast Asian nation. They live mostly on the island of Mindanao and the Sulu archipelago in the country’s south, which are some of the poorest regions in the Philippines.
