Exhibitors display lamb meat during the Halal Expo Dubai, dedicated to the growing halal food industry, on September 18, 2017

Standing behind her stall at a Dubai exhibition centre, Dai Dong He offered passersby what looked like carefully wrapped biscuits or chocolates.

“This is dry beef, beef snacks,” said Dai, general manager of Anhui Central Asia Food Co., one of eight Chinese firms from Anhui Province displaying products at Halal Expo Dubai 2017.

Dubai is hosting the show for the ninth year running, with the Gulf emirate positioning itself as a major hub for the halal industry, a booming $3 trillion market for goods and services that are permissible under Islamic law.

In recent years Chinese firms have increasingly looked to tap the market, with organisers of the two-day show, which was set to close on Tuesday, saying the Chinese halal sector is forecast to hit $1.9 trillion by 2021, an average growth rate of nine percent from its 2015 level.

Exhibitors from China said one of the keys to gaining a foothold in the market was winning the trust of consumers.

“We make sure our food is halal,” Dai told AFP, noting that the company buys meat from Chinese Muslims to ensure slaughtering is done according to Islamic tradition.

Nicholas Hsiu, a manager with ARA Halal Development Service Center, said the show was an opportunity to promote the company’s exports.

“We want to export to Muslim countries… We hope to introduce our products and export to the United Arab Emirates and the Middle East,” he told AFP.

An exhibitor displays honey during the Halal Expo Dubai, dedicated to the growing halal food industry, on September 18, 2017

The company manufactures various types of halal noodles and has obtained certificates from recognised Islamic accreditation bodies in Hong Kong and elsewhere, Hsiu said.

Seventy-five exhibitors from 15 countries, including Malaysia, the global leader in halal exports, Pakistan, Kazakhstan, Thailand, Switzerland and others took part in the show.

– Global halal hub –

The industry encompasses food, beverages, fashion, cosmetics, tourism, and the $2 trillion Islamic financial industry. For food products the key is ensuring no traces of pork or alcohol, which are strictly banned by Islamic teachings.

Exhibitors from Malaysia displayed a wide-range of cosmetics, beauty care products and agricultural seeds that one firm claimed “are better than Viagra”.

Mountain honey processed to conform with Islamic requirements was displayed by one Pakistani firm, while exhibitors from Kazakhstan presented various types of chocolates.

Standing at a stall packed with natural cosmetics, Nur Syarifatun Nadzirah, the managing director of Gaveno Green Resources in Malaysia, said the company ensured its products comply with halal rules.

“We make sure that all the ingredients are halal… We have certification” from well-established Malaysian bodies, she told AFP.

Dubai, which unlike its oil-rich Gulf neighbours has a highly diversified economy, has been vying to become the global hub for the halal industry.

The United Arab Emirates, of which Dubai is a component, imports about $20 billion in halal products every year, part of the some $50 billion imported annually by the six Gulf Cooperation Council states.

As well as holding conferences and exhibits, Dubai is establishing standardisation bodies like the Emirates International Accreditation Centre.

The centre is one of several international organisations that set guidelines and issue certificates for products that conform to Islamic rules.

An exhibitor displays products during the Halal Expo Dubai, dedicated to the growing halal food industry, on September 18, 2017

The initiative is part of efforts “for Dubai to become the capital of the Islamic economy,” Amina Ahmed Mohammed, the centre’s CEO, told AFP.

The emirate is also looking to overcome one of the main challenges facing the industry — different and sometimes conflicting standards and requirements depending on interpretations of religious texts.

“The UAE has launched an international forum for the accreditation of halal organisations… in a bid to unify procedures around the world,” Mohammed said.

The UK arms industry has generated hundreds of millions of dollars in profits from its dealings with Saudi Arabia during the conflict in Yemen, but the UK government has received just $40m of corporation tax, a new report says.

The report, released by children’s charity War Child, claims that corporations, including BAE systems and Raytheon, have made an estimated $775m in profit on $8bn worth of revenue by selling arms to Saudi Arabia between March 2015 and the end of 2016. 

Yet corporation tax receipts since the war in Yemen began stands at just $40m, something the NGO describes as “pitiful”.

The Saudi-led coalition’s war against Houthi rebels has seen numerous human rights violations take place, rights groups say, and has already claimed the lives of 10,000 civilians according to the UN. A UNICEF tally has put the number of children in need of treatment for malnutrition at 3,000,000.

According to its own figures, the UK government granted arms export licences to Saudi Arabia consisting of just under $3bn worth of aircraft, helicopters and drones. This includes the Tornado aircraft, which is partially manufactured by BAE systems; vehicles and tanks, including BAE’s Tactica armoured vehicles valued at $580,000; and $1.48bn worth of grenades missiles and bombs, including Raytheon’s Paveway IV bombs.

Huge earnings

BAE Systems has made the bulk of the profits, raking in $291m in operating profit from March 2016 until the year’s end, and $449m for the whole of 2017. 

Meanwhile, bonuses earned by what the report calls industry “fat cats” can sometimes run into the millions. The pay packet offered to incoming BAE boss Charles Woodburn in March and which led to a shareholder revolt, was worth more than $10m and would be enough to employ more than 320 life-saving paediatric nurses, the report says.

In comparing the $40m in corporation tax receipts with the $187m of humanitarian aid the UK will give to Yemen this year, the report argues that the UK taxpayer is “not getting value for money” for its aid spending.

“While the UK’s humanitarian leadership is to be applauded, the concurrent sales of arms with which the conflict is conducted represents a disconnect between the government’s international development policy and its wider trade, security and foreign policy agendas,” the report says.

“The arms trade directly counteracts much of the benefits Yemeni children and other civilians might expect to receive from the provision of aid, undermining the Department for International Development’s policy of getting value for money from the aid it commits.”

The UK government has faced criticism from MPs and campaign groups for its support of the Saudi-led coalition, which was initially included on the UN’s list of states found to be committing grave violations against children in conflict in 2016.

“The evidence we have heard is overwhelming that the Saudi-led coalition has committed violations of international law, using equipment supplied by the UK,” said Stephen Twigg MP, chair of the House of Commons International Development Committee, who had called for a halt of arms sales pending an investigation in 2016.

In July, Campaign Against Arms Trade (CAAT) lost a high-profile judicial review in which the UK High Court ruled that the government had not contravened international humanitarian law by sanctioning the sale of arms to Saudi Arabia, days after which $321m worth of UK arms to the Saudis were approved.

That deal had been halted six months earlier after an air strike hit a funeral hall in the Yemeni capital Sanaa, killing 140 people.

War Child began operations in Yemen earlier this year and is said to have provided food vouchers for over 1,000 households to access life-saving food items.

As a cholera epidemic that has already infected half a million people continues to unfold across the country at a rate of 5,000 new cases a day, the NGO has been working to raise awareness of the disease and to identify malnutrition in children.

Children have been hit particularly hard by the two year-old conflict, with 1,660 schools damaged, occupied or closed, and a quarter of school-age children out of education according to Save the Children.

“I find it morally repugnant that the UK government is allowing companies to make killer profits from the deaths of innocent children,” said Rob Williams, CEO of War Child UK.

“Thousands of children have died and millions more are at risk. The British government is shamefully complicit in their suffering and justifies it with promises of economic prosperity, which this report embarrassingly discredits.”

A British foreign office spokesperson told MEE that the government took its defence export responsibilities very seriously and operared “one of the most robust export control regimes in the world”.

“The UK is the third largest donor to Yemen, having committed over £139 million in UK aid this year. We are also playing a leading role in diplomatic efforts to achieve a political solution which can end the conflict and the terrible humanitarian suffering, including building support for the UN Special Envoy’s proposals for peace,” the spokesperson said.

“We remain deeply concerned about the human rights situation in Yemen and will continue to work with all parties to find a political solution to the conflict.”

The majority of companies in Slovakia use standard IT security systems to protect themselves from threats, such as anti-virus programmes and firewalls. On the other hand, only a few firms use more sophisticated security tools against modern threats like ransomware or other attacks resulting in the failure of websites and services.

This information stems from the recent survey carried out by the GfK agency in May among more than 100 IT managers and company owners. It suggests that while 93 percent of companies use the former group of security tools, the latter is used by only 38 percent of firms, the SITA newswire reported.

The companies often think that the standard systems are enough to protect them from threats and to meet the legal requirements, explains Roman Čupka, regional country manager of Flowmon Networks.

“On the other hand, these tools fail to quickly and effectively respond to sophisticated threats, like the Wanna Cry attack or the so-called DDoS attacks that have recently put the websites of Fun Radio, Sme and RTVS out of operation,” Čupka said, as quoted by SITA.

Companies have good experiences with both kinds of protection, the GfK survey showed. While 83 percent of respondents said they consider the ordinary systems beneficial, 80 percent said the same about the above-standard systems.

The survey also suggests that the importance of sophisticated security solutions is underestimated not only by their limited use, but also by weak investment plans that companies have been following for years. About 20 percent of companies plan to invest in above-standard IT systems in the following three-five years. The percentage of companies planning to invest in standard IT systems is slightly lower: only 16 percent.

“In terms of the massive widening of the new types of threats that can avoid the ordinary preventive protection of the computer networks, this number is quite low,” Čupka said, as quoted by SITA.

Yet, new legislation, such as the draft law on cyber security and the new regulations concerning the protection of personal data, will force many organisations to deal with preventive security measures and also utilise above-standard solutions to identify and respond to these threats as soon as possible, he added.

As many as 37 percent of organisations plan to use the new tools to protect themselves from harmful code in the following three-five years. They then want to implement new technologies for application security, for recording the activities of infrastructure and IT systems, their users and administrators, as well as tools for detection, collection and assessment of cyber events and to verify the identity of users planning to enter the information systems, SITA reported.

18. Sep 2017 at 9:28
 | Compiled by Spectator staff