The inaugural World Halal Summit (WHS) kicked off on Wednesday at the Kuala Lumpur Convention Centre (KLCC), which has been labeled as a “transformational global halal event” aimed at energizing the halal ecosystem.

This year’s event involves six different conferences targeting halal certifiers, scholars and academics and the business community who will gather over the next three days to discuss pertinent issues affecting the global halal market.

Also forming part of this year’s WHS programme, is the Malaysian International Halal Showcase (MIHAS) which has become the largest event of its kind in the world.

This trade show started from humble beginnings 12 years ago and has evolved from being a platform to create awareness on Halal products and services, to encouraging and creating business opportunities for trade and investment between local and international Halal industry stakeholders.

Since the inaugural trade show in 2004, MIHAS has become the go-to Halal expo having congregated approximately 170,000 visitors from 70 nations, 4,000 companies from 48 countries, and generated more than USD3 billion in sales over the past 11 years.

Meanwhile a two-day meeting was held by the Malaysian halal certifying authority, JAKIM, for international halal certification bodies. This convention covered technical issues relating to certification management systems and standards across various sub-sectors such as ingredients, food biotechnology, testing and analysis with reference to the Malaysian Halal standard.

The World Halal Summit is set to conclude on Friday. VOC (Shanaaz Ebrahim)