Iran has not been able to obtain a fair share of the world trade of halal products, Mahmoud Molanejad, the deputy director of Iran Research Organization for Science and Technology (IROST) said on Tuesday. Iran businessmen should find a way to have their halal products compete in the world market, IRNA quoted Molanejad as saying. “Unfortunately, Iran currently has almost no share in this big food market,” he said, adding that the recently established Iran National and Regional Center for Halal Technology can help the country’s food industry to find new markets for Iranian-made halal products. The halal food market is expected to be worth $1.6 trillion globally by 2018. With an average growth rate of 6.9 percent a year, it’s a sector that cannot be ignored, especially by food manufacturers keen to make their mark internationally. Derived from the holy Koran, the word ‘halal’ literally means ‘lawful’ or ‘acceptable’. Products like swine or pork and its bi-products, and animals that are not properly slaughtered or they die before slaughtering, are not accepted as halal in Islam.
