Five agencies join forces to help Korean exporters enter halal markets

The Korea International Trade Association (KITA) announced Friday that it signed a multilateral MOU with KOTRA, the Korea Agro-Fisheries & Food Trade Corporation (aT), the Korea Testing & Research Institute (KTR) and the Korea Food Research Institute (KFRI) to strengthen support for Korean exporters seeking to enter halal markets. The signing ceremony was held at Trade Tower in Samseong-dong, Gangnam-gu, Seoul.

The agreement was drawn up in response to the rapid growth of the global halal market and a broader trend among major countries, including Indonesia, to make halal certification mandatory and tighten related regulations. The five agencies aim to pool their individual support capabilities so that exporters can move seamlessly from gathering certification and regulatory information to actually entering target markets.

The signing ceremony was attended by Jung Hee-chul, head of KITA's trade promotion division; Kim Kwan-mook, head of KOTRA's economic security and trade cooperation division; Jeon Ki-chan, export food director at aT; Shin Jung-ha, head of KTR's global division; and Kim Young-chan, head of KFRI's food industry research division.

The signatory agencies plan to build a comprehensive cooperation framework by linking the halal-related information and support projects they have each provided separately, allowing companies to identify and access specialized services — including testing and analysis, certification assistance, overseas market intelligence and marketing — in one place.

Specific initiatives will include exchanging information on halal policies, regulations, certification regimes and market trends by country; linking each agency's information and support projects through a halal integrated information platform; jointly identifying obstacles that exporters face in obtaining halal certification and entering markets; and providing coordinated access to specialized services such as testing and analysis, certification consulting and overseas marketing support.

"Through this agreement, we will advance our halal market entry support system by continuously exchanging information and developing joint projects with the signatory agencies, and we will work to lower the barriers for exporters looking to enter halal markets," a KITA official said.

Meanwhile, KITA held the "Istanbul K-Halal Product Show" on Wednesday (local time) at the Shangri-La Bosphorus hotel in Istanbul, Turkey.

The event was organized to help Korean companies enter Europe and the MENA region, which together account for a large share of the global halal consumer goods import market valued at around $400 billion annually. Thirty-six promising Korean consumer goods companies in the beauty, food and household products sectors participated.