When Chinese officials
discovered a business opportunity in the fast-growing West Asian halal food
market, they turned to Wang Meng, who prefers to introduce himself as “Sayyid”
when he meets foreigners.
Twelve years ago, Mr.
Wang, who is from China's Hui Muslim minority group, founded a halal food
company in Beijing to cater to the city's Muslim community.
In a country where
pork is the dominant meat — consumed in every restaurant and found on most
dinner tables — Mr. Wang felt there was a crying need for a brand of food that
ensured the strictest quality control. A brand, he said, that Chinese Muslims
could trust.
“As a Muslim, I wanted
to do something for my community,” Mr. Wang said. “So I started this business,
from the heart.”
Today, Mr. Wang's
Xiangjuzhai Foods Group is one of Beijing's biggest halal food suppliers, and
has been approached by the government to play a role in its ambitious plan to
build a dominant halal foods export industry to cater to West Asian
markets.
With the support of
the government, Mr. Wang's company will, next year, begin exporting its halal
products to West Asian countries, Malaysia and Indonesia, at competitive prices
that traders say will challenge dominant halal exporters around the world,
including those from Brazil and India.
China's growing halal
trade is only one part of a wider push to expand ties with the Arab world beyond
oil, which makes up a bulk of the trade now. China is dependent on the region
for its growing energy needs, importing 55 per cent of its oil.
This week, China
launched its biggest effort yet to tap West Asian markets in Yinchuan, the
fast-growing capital city of Ningxia, a dry desert land home to the Hui.
Ningxia, where two million Hui Muslims live, making up a third of the
population, is being developed into a “strategic centre” for China's West Asian
trade push. The government is looking to leverage the region's religious and
historical connections to the Arab world — Huis descended from Muslim traders
who travelled to China on the Silk Road — to boost trade ties.
At a China-Arab States
trade fair in Yinchuan this week, the government sought Arab investment in the
construction of a $300-million industrial park, four five-star hotels and a
number of infrastructure projects listed in its Five-Year Plan, announced
earlier this year.
China's plans, in the
food processing sector for example, will have an impact beyond the region. Mr.
Wang said Ningxia was in the process of setting up a halal certification system
— with Malaysian help, to boost its credibility — and had received the support
of Qatar and the United Arab Emirates. According to the local government, nearly
10,000 companies are now involved in Ningxia's $3.7-billion halal food and
Muslim products industry.
Mr. Wang, of the
Xiangjuzhai food company, said Ningxia's preferential policies for “Muslim
products” had led him to invest in a factory near Yinchuan. With government
support, low investment costs and huge infrastructure investments in Ningxia's
processing centres, companies like his, according to many traders at the fair,
will pose a serious challenge to the Brazilian, Australian and Indian players
who dominte the halal foods market.
At this week's fair,
he said, a number of Malaysian and Indonesian investors had expressed interest
in his halal products, from traditional Chinese mooncakes to bread. Mr. Wang
will also visit India later this year, to meet with potential trading
partners.
“The halal market in
China is growing every year,” he said, pointing to rising consumption and a
fast-growing middle class. “But our focus from now,” he added, “will be
overseas.”
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