President ECOSF attended in the Inaugural Session of an Advanced Training Course on’’ How to Establish Halal Food Testing Laboratory?”

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COMSTECH organized the inaugural session of An Advanced Training Course; “How to establish Halal Food Testing Laboratory’’ on 08 June 2021 at COMSTECH Secretariat-Islamabad in a hybrid mode. It was attended by a large number of people online and some 80 individuals in person. On behalf of the ECOSF, its President Prof. Manzoor H. Soomro attended the event physically.

3-Day Training was inaugurated by H.E. Mr. Shibli Faraz, Minister for Science and Technology, Government of Pakistan. In his address, Mr. Faraz said that Islam sets food standards for the humanity, and Pakistan would expand its scope of research in the field of ‘Halal Food’ to other Muslim countries. He emphasized that research in relevant aspects of the field should bring benefit to the people of Pakistan and the entire humanity. The Ministry is paying focus on strengthening its institutions and taking steps for developing coordination between market and universities, added the Minister. The Minister emphasized on ensuring quality of Halal food items and said that the labs should have capacity to determine Halal and Haram (unlawful) with the focus on complete food value chain. The Minister encouraged all Halal industry-related institutions to develop mechanisms for increasing capacities and advised that universities should be part of this as well.

Prof. Dr. M. Iqbal Choudhary, Coordinator-General COMTECH, in his welcome speech said that Halal accreditation and certification is a niche in which we can achieve excellence. He further said that the Halal business is growing by over 20% and there are no major Halal certification bodies in Muslim countries, thus, there is good opportunity to work in this field. He also said that they at COMSTECH are focused on science-based commercialization and developing capacity in OIC member states focusing on the application of scientific research output. Theme of the event was relevant to the industrial development of Pakistan and OIC, he added.

Mr. Ihsan ÖVÜT Secretary-General of the Standards and Metrology Institute for Islamic Countries (SMIIC), Turkey, said that we need to develop common standards with the commitment to practice them to compete internationally.

The inaugural session was also addressed by Ms. Ismat Gul Khattak, Director General of Pakistan National Accreditation Council, Mr. Akhtar A. Bughio, Director General of Pakistan Halal Authority and Prof. Dr. Syed Ghulam Musharraf of Dr. Panjwani Center for Molecular Medicine and Drug Research, ICCBS, Karachi.