Can't have Brunei halal seal for a song

SMALL businesses involved in the national halal agenda need to improve their understanding of branding as a tool to successfully market their products overseas and create joint-venture opportunities with foreign firms in the future, said the permanent secretary at the Ministry of Industry and Primary Resources (MIPR).

"They have to understand the structure... because the commercial deals (part of the Brunei Halal Brand) later on will require them to cut a deal with other companies," Dato Paduka Hj Mohd Hamid Hj Mohd Jaafar said yesterday following a workshop organised by the ministry for small and medium enterprises (SMEs) involved in the Brunei Halal Brand.

Dato Paduka Hj Mohd Hamid stressed it is imperative that these SMEs understand what it means to be "riding on Brunei Darussalam's image" and widen their scope of possibilities.

"(The national halal agenda) is not only about selling halal food ... providing halal logistics is another, for example. Or even halal software, or software that helps deliver the halal product," he said. These solutions address concerns like how to transport the goods and ensure the halal integrity doesn't get compromised anywhere along the line, he added.

Dato Paduka Hj Mohd Hamid said this is the kind of confidence that needs to be instilled by establishing halal-compliant logistics, pointing out there are already existing companies elsewhere in the world that provide these kinds of services.

With a majority of the SMEs in the Sultanate considered cottage industries, one of the biggest challenges facing these small enterprises is in acquiring the necessary certifications to meet internationally-accepted standards.

"For companies like that to be involved in the Brunei halal programme, you can see that they have to come up to a whole different level," said Abdalhamid David Evans, a senior analyst at Imarat Consultants who is currently working with the ministry on a consultancy basis for the national halal agenda. He is also responsible for organising the annual International Halal Expo.

Cottage industries have distinct challenges, he said, and it's not easy for them to acquire internationally-accepted norms in the food industry.

"They need to operate out of proper business or manufacturing premises. And one of the ideas that came up was having a standard compliant facility that could be shared by these cottage industries," he said. Yesterday's workshop listed several key issues faced by the SMEs.

"The whole question of having access to raw materials, how to be competitive internationally ... (among others) are not things that will be solved overnight," said Abdalhamid.

"But they're also not insoluble problems so I think it's a matter of looking exactly at what the issues are and you can see that some of the SMEs are like cottage industries there are certain challenges and issues that face them."

"There are other companies that are already starting to export and there are certain challenges that they face. Taking all of these into account, is giving the government decision makers a chance to really see the problems and the challenges and until then they can incorporate solutions as they design the halal programme for Brunei."

Abdalhamid said it is critical for Brunei in general to think outside the box because "a lot of the low-hanging fruit in the halal industry is obviously being taken by other countries". He explained: Australia can produce beef. Brazil can produce chickens. We'll never be able to compete in those ways, we have to be creative with our thinking in Brunei to find the niche what's the value proposition that we've got in Brunei that makes it unique?"

He added Brunei is at an "interesting stage" where a lot of the plans which have been made over the last few years are "basically now at a point where they can be put into action".

"The global recession is actually in a sense to our advantage," he said, "because people are looking for access to new and untapped markets and the Muslim consumer market has appeared globally as an interesting viable target market."

"This is absolutely the moment to be thinking about how to get into the halal industry and how to take advantage of it because a lot of the existing consumer markets are considered to be saturated." he said. The Brunei Times