ASEAN-Türkiye halal trade ties highlight certification risks across Southeast Asia

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ASEAN-Türkiye halal trade ties

Highlights

Türkiye's GIMDES took leadership of the World Halal Council in 2005, solidifying Istanbul as a key global halal certification hub influencing Southeast Asia.
In September 2026, the Islamic Da’wah Council of the Philippines became the first Philippine-based certifier recognized by Indonesia’s BPJPH after regulatory changes under Law No. 33/2014.
Fragmented halal certification rules across ASEAN and the Gulf Cooperation Council increase compliance costs and uncertainty for businesses, hindering unified regional trade expansion.

Halal network links Manila and Istanbul

As reported by BusinessWorld Online, private halal certification bodies, religious institutions and business groups have built cross-border ties for decades alongside formal ASEAN-Türkiye relations. The article points to the World Halal Council, founded in Jakarta in 1999 and later registered in Kuala Lumpur, as a key platform linking certifiers from Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines and Türkiye.

The Philippines became an early institutional hub through the Manila-based Islamic Da’wah Council of the Philippines, which served as the council’s de facto secretariat in its formative years and helped secure its registration with the Philippine Securities and Exchange Commission. That role shifted in 2005 when Türkiye’s GIMDES took over the council’s leadership, moving the institutional center to Istanbul while preserving Manila’s influence through figures such as Abdul Rahman T. Linzag, who served as secretary-general from 2007 to 2010.

Türkiye’s position in the network strengthened further as GIMDES assumed a larger leadership role and its chairman, Huseyin Kami Buyukozer, was elected honorary president in 2011. That influence became especially visible in 2015 when the council convened halal certification bodies in Istanbul to oppose a European initiative for a common halal food standard, arguing that religious authority over halal certification should not be shaped by non-Muslim institutions.

Fragmented rules complicate regional expansion

Those governance disputes continue to affect trade policy in Southeast Asia. In 2021, the World Halal Council publicly criticized a planned Philippines-Indonesia memorandum of understanding on halal-certified products, saying a government institution without an Islamic religious mandate should not determine whether certification bodies meet religious requirements.

At the same time, the regulatory landscape is still changing. In September 2026, the Islamic Da’wah Council of the Philippines appeared on Indonesia’s list of recognized foreign halal certification bodies under BPJPH, becoming the first Philippine-based body accredited by Indonesia’s current halal regulator since the country transferred the mandate from MUI under Law No. 33/2014.

Differences in national systems remain a barrier to wider market integration. Malaysia relies on a framework coordinated by JAKIM, while Indonesia operates through cooperation between BPJPH and MUI, and their June 2023 mutual recognition deal for domestic products shows that cross-border acceptance still depends on bilateral arrangements rather than an ASEAN-wide mechanism.

That matters as ASEAN broadens economic engagement with partners such as the Gulf Cooperation Council, where halal products and services are part of a wider cooperation agenda. Businesses face added certification costs, compliance burdens and uncertainty because recognition can vary across ASEAN states and Gulf markets, while competing accreditation platforms in the Gulf and ASEAN’s still-deliberated halal food guidelines show that a unified regional architecture remains unfinished.

Earlier, we outlined how a fourth Philippine halal certifier gained Malaysia’s JAKIM recognition to broaden export access.

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