Two countries, two of the world’s most trusted halal logos, and until recently a producer in Penang who wanted to sell in Surabaya had to get certified twice. The duplicate certificate is the thing the new Malaysia-Indonesia Halal Council exists to kill, and the useful news is that most of the killing was done before the council was announced.
What was announced
On 25 September 2026, the closing day of the Global Halal Summit held alongside the MIHAS trade show in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia’s Deputy Prime Minister Ahmad Zahid Hamidi announced the establishment of a Malaysia-Indonesia Halal Council.
| Element | Detail |
|---|---|
| Chair | Indonesia’s BPJPH (Halal Product Assurance Organising Agency) |
| Secretary-general | Malaysia (the Halal Authority of Malaysia, with JAKIM expected to act as secretariat, per regional reporting) |
| First meeting | Scheduled for October 2026 |
| Stated purpose | Facilitate mutual recognition of certificates, minimise redundant procedures, resolve regulatory discrepancies and ease market entry for businesses in each other’s markets |
| Wider ambition | A building block for an ASEAN Halal Council, which Malaysia aims to launch by September 2027 with itself as secretariat |
Zahid framed the division of labour plainly: Malaysia brings standards, governance, Islamic finance and trade facilitation; Indonesia brings production capacity and entrepreneurship. The success test he set was reducing barriers and increasing the number of businesses trading across the border, with small producers singled out: only about 14.7% of Malaysian halal-certified businesses export at all.
What already exists: the 2023 recognition agreement
The council is not where mutual recognition starts. In 2023 JAKIM and BPJPH signed a memorandum of understanding on mutual recognition of halal certification for domestic products, valid until June 2029. Under it, each country’s certification body sits on the other’s list of recognised foreign halal certification bodies.
In practice that means:
- a Malaysian product certified by JAKIM is accepted in Indonesia as halal-certified, and can carry that status under Indonesia’s mandatory regime without a second audit;
- an Indonesian product certified by BPJPH is accepted in Malaysia under the Trade Descriptions (Certification and Marking of Halal) Order 2011, which only allows a product to be marked halal if its certifier is on JAKIM’s recognised list.
Negotiations to simplify the procedures concluded in June 2026, and reporting since then says the two countries have begun accepting each other’s halal logos on pack. Between 2021 and 2023 Malaysia exported RM 7.77 billion of halal-certified products to Indonesia; Malaysian officials put current halal trade between the two at roughly US$2–3 billion a year.
So the duplicate certificate is largely gone already for domestic products. Our guide to foreign bodies recognised by JAKIM shows where BPJPH sits on that list, and the Malaysia vs Indonesia comparison sets out the two systems’ remaining differences.
What the council adds
If recognition exists, what is left for a council? Three things, in the order they are likely to be tackled.
Procedures, first. Recognition on paper still leaves a producer registering its foreign certificate, matching product categories across two classification systems, and satisfying two labelling regimes. Zahid’s stated priorities were overlapping procedures and discrepancies in regulation. Expect the first outputs to be administrative: a single registration pathway, aligned category lists, agreed logo placement.
Scope, second. The 2023 MoU covers domestic products. It does not obviously cover a product made in a third country and certified by JAKIM for Malaysia that an Indonesian importer then wants to bring in, nor the reverse. Indonesia’s recognition of foreign bodies is explicitly scope-bound by country of production. A council is the forum where that gap gets closed or left open.
Meat and slaughter, last if at all. Both countries apply their own slaughter rules through their own standards (MS 1500 in Malaysia, the SJPH criteria and MUI fatwa in Indonesia) and both treat slaughter recognition as a separate, stricter question from processed food. Nothing announced suggests either is handing that to a joint body. For shoppers who care about stunning rules, the national position still governs.
The ASEAN Halal Council
Malaysia’s longer game is regional. On 14 September 2026 Zahid said Malaysia would use MIHAS to promote an ASEAN Halal Council with Malaysia as secretariat, and at the summit he set September 2027 as the target launch. A separate “World Halal Development Council” with Saudi Arabia proposed as chair and Malaysia as secretary-general has also been floated.
An ASEAN council would extend the recognition logic to member states without Muslim majorities, which is where the trade friction is highest: Vietnam, Thailand and the Philippines export halal-certified food to Malaysia and Indonesia through certifiers each must separately recognise. Our guide to Vietnam’s five JAKIM-recognised certifiers is a worked example of how that recognition currently works one country at a time.
The honest status: announced, targeted, not yet established. Treat 2027 as an ambition.
What this means on the shelf
In Malaysia or Indonesia. You will increasingly see the other country’s logo on imported packs. A Halal Indonesia logo on a product in a Kuala Lumpur supermarket is a certification by BPJPH that JAKIM recognises; a JAKIM logo in Jakarta is the mirror image. Both are checkable on the issuing body’s register, which is the check that matters.
Outside both countries. No change to how you verify. A product certified by either body is certified by a named body with a public register. The council does not create a new logo, and if a joint ASEAN mark appears in future we will cover it when it is real.
For businesses. The first council meeting’s outputs are the thing to watch. Until procedures are published, work from the 2023 MoU: certify at home, register the certificate abroad, and check that the product category you are exporting is within the recognition’s scope.
Summary
| Question | Answer |
|---|---|
| What was announced? | A Malaysia-Indonesia Halal Council, 25 September 2026, chaired by BPJPH with Malaysia as secretary-general |
| Is mutual recognition new? | No; a JAKIM-BPJPH MoU from 2023, valid to June 2029, already recognises each other’s domestic certifications |
| What changes first? | Procedures: registration, category alignment, logo rules. First meeting October 2026 |
| Does it cover meat and slaughter? | Nothing announced suggests so; national slaughter rules continue to apply |
| What about the ASEAN Halal Council? | Targeted for September 2027; proposed, not established |
| What should a shopper do differently? | Nothing; verify the logo on the issuing body’s register as before |
Look up any E-code on a Malaysian or Indonesian pack in the E-codes database.
To scan a full ingredient list for halal status in seconds, use the ingredient scanner.
For the Indonesian side of the deadline that makes recognition matter, see Indonesia’s October 2026 halal deadline; for what JAKIM is and how its register works, what is JAKIM?
How we reached this guide
We checked the following sources before publishing:
- Malay Mail, “Malaysia, Indonesia form joint Halal Council to strengthen bilateral trade” (25 September 2026): announcement at GHaS 2026; BPJPH as chair, Malaysia as secretary-general; first meeting in October; negotiations concluded June 2026; 2023 memorandum.
- Bernama, “Malaysia-Indonesia Halal Council To Meet In October” and “Malaysia To Promote Proposal For ASEAN Halal Council At MIHAS 2026” (September 2026).
- Salaam Gateway, “Malaysia and Indonesia launch bilateral halal council on Day 3 of MIHAS 2026”.
- Báo Quốc Tế via Vietnam.vn (10 October 2026): JAKIM as expected secretariat; MoU valid until June 2029; RM 7.77 billion of halal exports 2021–2023; US$2–3 billion annual halal trade estimate; 14.7% of Malaysian certified businesses exporting; RM 80 billion export target by 2030.
- Khmer Times (September 2026): the World Halal Development Council proposal and the ASEAN timetable.
- Trade Descriptions (Certification and Marking of Halal) Order 2011 and JAKIM’s recognised foreign bodies list effective 21 August 2026: the legal basis for recognition in Malaysia.
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