KUALA LUMPUR, Oct 20 — Only federal and state religious bodies have the authority to issue halal certification, the Malaysian Islamic Development Department (Jakim) said today in rejecting the proposal for a second halal logo.

But businesses that wish to label their products as being 100 per cent Muslim-made may do so, officer with the agency’s halal department Haswari Osman told a forum on the issue.

“I will only repeat what the minister had said before that only Jakim and state religious bodies have the authority to issue halal certification,” he told Malay Mail Online at the forum.

“But if they want to use the label Muslim-made they can,” he added.

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The forum was organised by Institut Kerjasama Islam Antarabangsa Malaysia (Ikiam), the NGO that made the proposal for the second halal logo.

At the same time, the vice president of Halal-Developent Corporation’s industry development division Ahmad Lokman Ibrahim said labelling products as Muslim-made is a matter of choice.

But he was quick to stress that labelling alone will not guarantee a product’s marketability.

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“I think they need to understand that it is more than just labelling. It’s also about packaging and marketing and how they are marketed,” he said.

When asked to comment on Ikiam’s claim that the second halal logo was necessary to help boost Muslim products, Ahmad Lokman again said it was a matter of choice.

“If they think it is advantageous to them… they can go ahead,” he said.

The Rubber Industry Smallholders Development Authority’s (Risda) chairman Datuk Zahidi Zainul Abidin reportedly said that the development body plans to launch the new halal logo next year that will be issued by Ikiam only for products made by Muslims.

“The need for another halal logo is to distinguish products that were produced by Muslims against that of non-Muslims besides helping Risda smallholding entrepreneurs and Muslim entrepreneurs make forays into the halal markets locally and abroad,” he was quoted as saying by national news agency Bernama.

Zahidi, who is also listed as Ikiam’s chairman, had said the additional new halal logo on top of Jakim’s existing halal logo would help clear misgivings over the veracity of halal products.

He had said that too few Muslim entrepreneurs applied for halal certification at only 28 per cent against 72 per cent non-Malay entrepreneurs, while noting that only 11 per cent registered with the government’s Halal Industry Development Corporation to export their products are Muslim companies and the rest are non-Muslim companies.

Jakim’s director general Tan Sri Othman Mustapha immediately said the move was illegal, although he thought it may have a good objective.