Jakarta. Vice President Ma’ruf Amin recently tried to get Shanghai businesses to tap into Indonesia’s hundreds of billion dollars worth of halal industry.

The vice president on Tuesday met with Shanghai Mayor Gong Zheng during his China trip. According to a press release, Ma’ruf and Gong discussed economic cooperation at length. As the world’s largest Muslim-majority country, Indonesia holds tremendous potential in the halal industry. Ma’ruf claimed that Indonesia’s halal industry was worth about $135 billion. 

“The halal value chain is forecast to grow significantly at around 4.5 percent to 5.3 percent in 2023. This encompasses halal food and beverages, modest fashion, and Muslim-friendly tourism. This huge halal market potential should be part of the Indonesia-China business partnership,” Ma’ruf told Gong, as quoted from the press statement.

Gong said he would discuss this $135-billion halal industry potential with the Commerce Commission.

“I will relay this information to the Shanghai’s Commerce Commission,” the mayor said.

According to the 2021/2022 Indonesia Halal Markets Report, the domestic spending across halal economy products and services in the Southeast Asian country reached $184 billion in 2020, and will likely reach $281.6 billion by 2025. The report also names Indonesia as the world’s largest halal consumer market. 

The food and beverage sector is the largest sector by spend in Indonesia’s halal economy. Muslims in Indonesia spent $135 billion on halal food and beverage products in 2020. Followed by Muslim fashion ($15.6 billion), halal pharmaceuticals ($5.13 billion), and cosmetics ($4.19 billion). Indonesia is home to around 229.6 million Muslims as of 2020.

China was Indonesia’s second-largest foreign investor in 2022, just behind close neighbor Singapore. Government data shows China invested around $8.2 billion in Indonesia throughout last year. Singapore’s investment totaled $13.3 billion over the said period.