Halal Expo Indonesia 2023 Held on October 25-28 at ICE BSD, Tangerang

Jakarta, MINA – After being successfully held in 2018 and 2019, Halal Expo Indonesia (HEI) will again be held on 25-28 October 2023 at ICE BSD, Tangerang.

The exhibition with the theme “Networking the Global Islamic Industries to the Indonesian Halal Ecosystem” will be attended by 300 exhibitors from Indonesia and 20 friendly countries and is targeting around 17,000 visitors (buyers & investors) from within the country and abroad.

CFO of PT Halal Expo Indonesia, Aryo Wibisono explained, the exhibition occupies an area of 10,000 m2, a number of product categories are presented ranging from food and beverages, fashion, finance, cosmetics, pharmaceuticals, property, education, to Umrah, and Hajj travel.

“Different from the previous implementation with the concept of hybrid Business to Business (B2B) and Business to Customer (B2C), this time the HEI was held in the B2B concept and became the first and largest event for an international trade exhibition for halal products, economics and sharia finance in Indonesia,” said Aryo at the launch of the Halal Expo Indonesia in Jakarta on Wednesday.

In fact, continued Aryo, PT Halal Expo Indonesia in partnership with Saudi International Halal Expo is ready to bring HEI to be held in Mecca, Saudi Arabia in 2025.

“Participants, who incidentally are businessmen, are facilitated by us to be able to export their products to a number of countries that are currently partners in cooperation, especially a number of countries in the Middle East, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and other countries,” he said.

Also Read: Europe Asks Israel to Stop Settlements in Palestinian Land

Aryo also explained that apart from that, there are also opportunities for business actors who want to partner with outside producers. “Because the HEI event also presents pavilions from friendly countries that want to expand to Indonesia, they need local partners,” he explained.

He said, HEI has strategic value for business actors not only knowing the global market directly, but at the same time encouraging them to improve product quality, quantity, continuity, and global halal product certification standards.

Halal certification is an important point and a form of commitment to realizing Indonesia as the world’s center for halal producers in 2024.

Aryo admitted, the halal certification process is still a chore that requires synchronization and coordination from related institutions and stakeholders.

“In addition to the awareness of business actors to apply for halal certification. As is known, the first phasing period for halal certification will end on October 17, 2024,” he said

Based on the Law on Halal Product Guarantee No. 33 of 2014 and its derivatives, there are three groups of products that must have halal certification as the first phase ends.

First, food and beverage products. Second, raw materials, food additives and auxiliary materials for food and beverage products. Third, slaughter products and slaughter services.

Also Read: Israel Approves Plans for Record of over 5,700 Illegal Residences in Occupied West Bank

“Insha Allah, in this Halal Expo Indonesia there will be a series of talk shows, conferences that bring together halal regulators in Indonesia who provide outreach and education related to halal certification regulations so that business people can get a clear understanding so that the certification process can run easily and smoothly,” said Aryo Wibisono.

Socialization of the development of regulations and provisions on halal standards that apply in friendly countries with conditions in Indonesia and vice versa has also become one of the materials discussed in a series of international conferences.

This includes muamalah fiqh issues, issues related to the implementation of Islamic economics, development of the Islamic industry, investment opportunities in the halal industry sector, and other related topics.

Not only exhibitions and conferences, this exhibition but also be enlivened by various other interesting events such as Halal Run, HEI Women, HEI Youth, HEI Creative & Art, HEI Edutainment Ground, HEI Cooking, and HEI Coffee.

“Halal Expo Indonesia is expected to become an incubator and accelerator as well as a business creator to strengthen the Indonesian halal product development ecosystem,” concluded Aryo.

In strategic partnerships with the Indonesian Muslim Entrepreneurs Community (KPMI) and Aspenku, business actors and exhibitors during the event will get opportunities for guidance and export facilitation.

Also Read: 1st Hijab-Wearing Judge Join Bench at US Court in New Jersey

In August 2022 at ICE BSD City, KPMI successfully held Muslim Life Trade – an international zone – in conjunction with Muslim Lifefest which brought together 650 foreign buyers from 9 countries with 150 SMEs in business matchmaking which at that time was carried out in a hybrid manner.

In the HEI 2023 event, KPMI which has an Export Academy program – an export HR development ecosystem – in collaboration with Nudira Learning Center, Aspenku.com and Hibbu Creative House is ready to increase the business scale of SMEs to the global market.

The chairman of KPMI, Rachmat Sutarnas Marpaung said, it was hoped that the Halal Expo Indonesia exhibition could become a representation of Indonesia’s halal industry and Islamic finance at the global level.

“Halal industry players can visit each other and negotiate. So that the more we facilitate them to meet (business matchmaking), it is hoped that mutually beneficial transactions will occur,” he said.

Rachmat said HEI received appreciation and support from a number of friendly countries including Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand, Japan, Korea, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Tanzania, Oman, Qatar, Somalia, South Africa, Turkey, England, Syria, and Canada.

“They are ready to come as exhibitors, buyers and investors,” he concluded. (T/RE1)

Mi’raj News Agency (MINA)