24 representatives of the Bulgarian business participated in the seventh International Halal Expo in Istanbul

The 7^th International Halal Expo and the 5^th World Halal Summit took place within the period from November 27 and December 1, 2019 in Istanbul.

For a first time in the international exhibition in the Republic of Turkey participated 24 representatives of the business from Bulgaria. Their participation was organized together in cooperation between the Committee on Halal Certification at the Muslim Denomination and “Valenta VIP Travel” - a specialized tour operator in the organization of visits and participations in international trade exhibitions. The representatives of the business in Bulgaria were accompanied by Beyhan Mehmed – Chairman of the Committee on Halal Certification at the Muslim Denomination, and Dr. Ahmed Lyutov – member of the same committee.

The forum was attended by representatives of the business from more than 50 countries around the world, as well as nearly 400 professionals in the field of halal industry.

The seventh edition of Helal Expo was officially opened by Emre Ete, Deputy Chairman of the World Halal Organization. “Muslims have to produce and sell more halal products, in order to reach a larger percentage of the halal market. According to the current statistics 85 % of the halal market to date are managed by non-Muslims, and only 15 % are in the hands of the Muslims.” – Emre Ete said in his welcoming address at the opening of the forum in Istanbul.

According to Beyhan Mehmed from Grand the Muslim Denomination, unfortunately Bulgaria is not an exception of this trend as well.

“The interest in the held in Turkey forum was great and for the entire period of the event there were more than 40 000 visitors. In the exhibition participated also about 9000 delegates from different organizations related to halal industry, from countries all over the world.” – said for Grandmufti.bg the Chairman of the Committee on Halal Certification at the Muslim Denomination Beyhan Mehmed. According to him the organizers of the international halal expo also expressed their satisfaction with the fact that for a first time in it participate representatives of the business from Bulgaria.

“The forum provided an opportunity to organized the so called B2B meetings between representatives of the business from different countries, to exchange business contacts as well as their participants to find potential business partners from all over the world.” – Beyhan Mehmed further added.

Along with the international halal expo in Istanbul, conferences were also held in all four days. In them participated scholars and specialists in the field of halal food production and industry from more than 40 countries around the world. Among the discussed during the conferences topics were “Global Tendencies at the halal production market”, “Challenges to the halal tourism”, “Islamic banking and halal financing” and many others.

According to the information presented at the forum, today the world halal production market is 4 trillion USD. Leading countries on this market are Indonesia, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Turkey, Iran and Egypt. It is interesting the fact that due to their qualities the certified halal products in a world scale are widely used also by non-Muslims.

According to the information of the Committee on Halal Certification of Grand Mufti’s Office, currently 63 companies in Bulgaria have a certificate for halal production, issued by the committee. According to Beyhan Mehemd, most of them are representatives of the food industry in our country and the majority of them export their production abroad, mainly in Muslim countries all over the world.

Author: L. Chausheva