REPUBLIKA.CO.ID, CILACAP -- Indonesia's dream to become the center of the world's halal economy can be realized soon. Indonesia has quite a lot of strong capital to manifest hopes as the center of the world's halal economy in the future.
Chairman of the Islamic Economic Community (MES) Erick Thohir - who is also the Minister of SOEs (BUMN) - said that during his tenure as Chairman of the MES, there were four excellent programs that had to be implemented.
Indonesia has a very strong capital or potential to become the world's halal center. "As a country with the largest Muslim population in the world, we are very wrong if we cannot become the world's halal center," said Erick Thohir in Cilacap Regency, Sunday (11/4).
In producing halal food, Indonesia is currently inferior to Brazil, where the majority of its citizens are not Muslim. Brazil has become the number one country in the production of halal food. To that end, Thohir is determined to make Indonesia the center of the halal industry at home and abroad
In addition to being the world's halal center, Erick stated, MES's second flagship program is to develop the national Islamic financial industry. This is also related to Indonesia's predominantly Muslim population.
Previously, said Erick, Indonesia did not yet have a strong Islamic financial institution. "However, as Minister of SOEs and with the support of all parties, we now have a very large Islamic bank called Bank Syariah Indonesia (BSI)."
Currently, BSI is even included in the top 10 national banks, which is in the 7th position.
The efforts to develop Islamic financial institutions carried out by MES will continue. BSI should not stop here, but will also encourage other Islamic financial products to grow.
The potential of the Indonesian halal industry per year is estimated at more than Rp. 3,000 trillion. In 2020, the value of the Indonesian halal industry reached 3 billion US dollars. Meanwhile, the value of the global halal industry per year is Rp. 30 thousand trillion.