The Ministry of Religious Affairs’ Halal Product Assurance Agency (BPJPH) assesses that Indonesian halal products created from the national halal ecosystem have the potential to support increased trade performance. "The size of Indonesia's halal ecosystem with the support of halal capital that we have, both human capital, social capital, demographic capital, and so on, we can be sure that our halal products have the potential to support the improvement of national trade performance," said Plt. Head of BPJPH Ministry of Religious Affairs Mastuki when opening the launch of the Free Halal Certification Program (Sehati) which was monitored online from Jakarta, Wednesday. Mastuki said the potential for Indonesian halal products is large because it is supported by infrastructure and halal chains that are connected from upstream to downstream. Halal certification is the role of intermediary that connects the upstream halal industry with downstream markets between producers and consumers.
Including linking between halal preparation materials produced by companies and the service industry with MSE business actors who utilize halal materials as new products. "The spirit of regulation of halal product assurance (JPH) is a system of relations or networks that involves many stakeholders. Businesses, ministries of government institutions, halal inspection institutions, religious and community organizations, universities and so on. All of them have different duties and functions. "different but complementary and interdependent," he said. With such conditions, Mastuki emphasized that the key to whether or not the national halal ecosystem is strong depends on how solid the synergy is between all relevant halal stakeholders. Since it was formed on October 11 2017, BPJPH as a JPH service provider with halal certification as its core activity, has also continued to make a number of acceleration efforts, including preparing various JPH service infrastructures. BPJPH also provides halal certification services electronically through an application called Sihalal (halal information system).
Apart from being a manifestation of the mandate of PP 39/2021 Article 59, the use of Sihalal also provides a lot of practicality for business actors, BPJPH, Halal Inspection Agency (LPH) and the Indonesian Ulema Council (MUI) in carrying out an easy, fast, and efficient halal certification process. BPJPH has integrated the halal certification service system with Online Single Submission (OSS) or integrated online licensing through Sihalal. Sihalal development is also carried out to be integrated with all LPH and other halal service stakeholders. In an effort to build a trading network of halal products between countries while at the same time encouraging the export of national halal products, BPJPH synergizes with various countries through mutually beneficial cooperation. "The Sehati program is aimed at Micro and Small Enterprises (UMK), because most of them do not have halal certification. Through this free halal certification, it is hoped that more MSEs can penetrate the global halal market," he said.
