The Korea Rural Economic Institute set up a Halal Food Market Research Task Force on April 8 to strengthen surveys and analysis of the halal food market, a new blue ocean of the world food market.

The size of the halal food market for 1.5 billion consumers in the Islamic cultural area is estimated to grow to more than 1 trillion 600 billion dollars in 2018. Accordingly, governments and food companies are seeking for various strategies to enter the market.

The task force, which consists of the institute’s 10 experts in food and export, will identify what is necessary to enhance Korean halal food’s competitiveness by examining the global halal food market’s trends and outlook, Islamic countries’ halal food certification systems and import processes, and the current exporters’ halal food support policies.

Based on the TF’s research results, KREI will focus its efforts with the Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs, the Korea Food Research Institute, and the Korea Agro-Fisheries & Food Trade Corporation this year on establishing a systematic support system for domestic agrifood firms to successfully enter the halal market in competition with multinational food corporations and to increase their market share.