Minister of State-owned Enterprises Erick Thohir has said that Mawlid, the birthday of Prophet Muhammad, is a momentum to accelerate the sharia (Islamic) economy.
Thohir, who currently serves as the national sharia Economic Community (MES) chairperson, said that Mawlid is a day of blessings for Muslims to optimize their effort in conducting good deeds.
“Mawlid is a special moment for Muslims. The spirit of Mawlid is a perfect momentum for the MES to enhance its collaboration to accelerate the sharia economy and help improve the people’s welfare,” the minister said here, Saturday.
He underlined some achievements in the national sharia economy development conceived by MES, They included the IDX-MESBUMN 17 index, a joint initiative between the MES, the Indonesian Stock Exchange, and national state-owned enterprises, and roadshows to promote Islamic financial literacy and inclusion.
“(The programme) has successfully recorded 18,365 beneficiaries in 64 events at 30 cities in five countries, as well as 330 new investors,” the minister noted.
He also highlighted the MES’ success in establishing organisational networks in 22 countries.
“This is a perfect present for the MES’ 22nd anniversary. We will continue our training, intermediary, and business matching to encourage exports of halal products. Earlier this year, we exported coffee to Oman, and just recently, we exported coffee to Egypt and spices to Ghana,” Thohir noted.
Besides focusing on the financial markets, the MES is also focusing on developing the halal industry by educating halal producers, assisting with halal certification, and training halal product assistants, he said.
“Praise be to God, we have now assisted 729 MSMEs and 160 assistants for halal products. We will continue developing community, cultural, and local wisdom-based halal culinary ecosystem,” the minister said.
Thohir also encouraged the development of high-standard and quality halal products by implementing ISO 9001:2015 quality management system certification to augment the national Islamic economy to become the main actor at the global level.
“The MES has also developed, disseminated, and piloted the sharia-based government-SOE cooperation scheme. Moreover, we also collaborate with Bank Indonesia in (the organisation of) Indonesia International Halal Fair in Singapore. God Willing, we will initiate (a similar event) in Saudi Arabia,” he remarked.
Source: Antara News