Does Halal Industry Ruin Creative Economy?
According to McKinsey & Co, a multi-national management consulting firm, which has predicted that by 2030, Indonesia will be the seventh largest economy in the world with 135 million members of consuming class, 71% of population in cities producing 86% of GDP, and about 113 million skilled workers that needed.
Dealing with that, the government seems to believe that creative economy by its creative industry can play a role as a leading component of economic growth. This is supported by the fact that, through Presidential Regulation №6 of 2015, the government established a new non-ministerial institution called the Badan Ekonomi Kreatif (Bekraf), which responsible for the development of creative economy in Indonesia and in charge of assisting the president in formulating, defining, coordinating, and synchronizing policies in creative economy. Sure enough, until the middle of 2019, there were 4 startup companies from Indonesia who won the Unicorn title or the company’s valuation had reached USD 1 Billion. The entire Unicorn startup is engaged in the apps and game development sub-sector which is one of the 16 creative industry subsectors classified by Bekraf. Indonesia’s creative industries hold great potential, it is also helped by huge government initiatives to build strong foundations for all sectors in creative industry. Thus, creative economy is believed as opportunities to leapfrog into exciting and fast-growing emerging economy.
While recently, the topic of halal industry became an interesting conversation in the community. The presence of well-known events with the theme of hijra, Islamic youth movement, until ideal lifestyle of a Muslim as carried out late August 2019, the Muslim Lifestyle Festival 2019 and other events have made halal industry much sought after and attracted by consumers, especially from the Muslim segment. As a country with the largest number of Muslims in the world with the spirit of the Islamic movement becoming more intense, the will of spreading Islam influencing to muslim entrepreneurs. Muslim entrepreneurs have begun to intensify using the term of halal product for each product/service they provides. As during the 2019 Muslim Lifestyle Festival event, there were 8 business sectors on display at the event. The eight sectors include Islamic-based schools, halal cosmetics, halal tourism, halal fashion, sharia property, halal media, halal food, and sharia startups. This event received a full support by the Governor of DKI Jakarta, Anies Baswedan, who said he puts his high hopes for the halal industry to develop more rapidly. Also in mid-April 2019, despite the apparent contradiction with the previous paragraph, President Joko Widodo had said he would encourage the Halal Industry to move forward on Halal Park inauguration event. For additional information, the export value of halal products in the world in 2014 reached 1.1 trillion US dollars and is targeted to reach 1.6 trillion US dollars in 2018. Meanwhile, the growth value of exports of halal products from Indonesia in 2011 to 2014 was 11.17 percent. Based on those data, the Ministry of Industry (Kemenperin) is now developing a halal industry area which targeted to be completed before 2020.
In terms of the existing operational sector, Bekraf on its official website confirms that there are 16 sectors included in the creative industries. These sectors are: apps and game development; architecture; interior design; fashion; product design; visual communication design; movies, animation, and video; photography; crafts; culinary arts; music; publishing; advertising; performing arts; fine art; television and radio. If we pay more attention, some of the 8 halal industry sectors featured at the 2019 Muslim Lifestyle Festival have the same scope as some of the 16 Creative Industries versions of Bekraf’s Classification. For instance movies, animation, and video sector from creative industry with halal media from halal industry, and so on. Implicitly, this raises questions in the community that ‘does the existence and continuous expansion of Halal Industry threatens the development of the existing Creative Industry?’
Before going any further, let the writer define the two industries first. The concept of creative economy is an economic concept in a new economic era which intensifies information and creativity by relying on the ideas and the knowledge stock of Human Resources (HR) as the main production factor in their economic activities (Sutarman 2017). Creative economy growth is dependent on new ideas that invented. This concept refills the shifts of economic era from agricultural economy to industrial-based economy (manufacture) then knowledge economy to creative economy. In contrast to other sectors that are heavily dependent on the exploitation of natural resources, the power of the creative economy is more based on the superiority of human resources. In a nutshell, each of economics era adopted its own asset, creative economy adopts a person’s intelectuality and creativity as its main assets, and the existence of the creative industries that became its embodiment.
While Halal Industry, consists of the word ‘halal’ and ‘industry’. According to KBBI, industry is the activity of processing goods using facilities and equipment. Whereas halal means that it is permitted by sharia or Islamic law (KBBI, 2019). A United Kingdom Islamic economic scholar, Abdalhamid Evans, explains halal with more spesific explanation. He said that halal is a portion of God’s gift to mankind; lawful, wholesome, safe, healthy, pleasing. For these people, halal is not just about the end product; it is the entire process. It is a trust, an honour and a responsibility. This certainly needs an effective approach to maximize the development of the halal industry which was then introduced by Slamet Ibrahim, Professor of ITB Pharmacy School-Chair of Salman ITB Halal Center, put forward the concept of the halal approach which he called Halal by Design (HbD). this concept begins with the planning, selection of halal materials, halal production and halal product guarantee based on halal management according to Islamic law. To sum up, Halal industry is an activity to process goods/provide services using the facilities and equipment that permitted by Islamic law.
From the two explanations above, at first glance it appears that both industries doesn’t have any relation at all. But this statement is not entirely true. The existence of the fact that the two industries are not something that must be in conflict, paradoxically, nor is it something that is sure to pair up. The creative industry places more emphasis on what the writer call fundamental aspects of the industry. From the creative process, an industry that was previously monotonous and stagnant, continues to grow until it is then classified into certain sectors, which due to the rapid information and technology, making its development unlimited time, space, and actors. While the halal industry, directly emphasizes what the writer call the technical aspects of the industry. With no particular attention to the origin of the industry sector’s concept, halal industry emphasized on how the process of product creation from the initial planning of the producers, funding, production to the hands of consumers. All aspects of industry must not conflict with Islamic law.
Compared to colliding with each other, the two industries have a greater chance to fuse together and become a neat combination. The application of halal standards in the creative industries will further improve the quality of products / services offered. This is supported by the fact that halal standards have more complex procedures than conventional standards (cleanliness, feasibility, waste management, etc.). As stated by Slamet Ibrahim, the halal industry encompasses all economic activities (production-distribution-consumption) starting from planning, selection process, production, certification, tocompany management that must comply with standards that do not conflict with Islamic values. For instance, halal food that is produced must have gone through a longer process than food that is not concerned with halal elements. Halal food in terms of what materials are used, how they are processed, their maintenance processes, production processes, packaging processes, distribution process, to what impact is given to the environment, and ideally where the business capital is obtained — whether it contains prohibited transactions or not, and so on until reach consumers. Food which is not concerned with halal elements, is sufficiently prepared only to meet general standards of health, eligibility, etc. by tending to ignore the flow of funding and other elements that are considered specific to Muslims. This makes, halal standards automatically exceed conventional standards which besides making it permissible for Muslim consumption, also means maximizing the quality of the products / services provided. Because of the increased quality of products / services, this proves that halal products / services are not only intended for Muslims, but for anyone who wants a products / services of higher quality than conventional standards.
To conclude, the high enthusiasm of the Indonesian government in supporting and developing creative economic infrastructure in its industry since 2016 as evidenced by the establishment of Bekraf, also followed by trends and developments in the tastes of Muslim societies that have begun to favor halal products, are expected to have a positive effect on the nation’s economy. front. This can happen if the two industries which are often considered to be opposite can form mutually beneficial relations. Indonesia, as a nation with the largest number of Muslims in the world, makes the opportunity for the development of halal creative industries more closer to reach the reality and become the main element for Indonesia for the seventh largest economy in the world by 2030, Insyaa Allah.
Source:
Republika (2019) Indonesia Muslim Lifestyle Festival Perkuat Ekonomi Syariah. Retreived by: https://republika.co.id/berita/px1pjx423/indonesia-muslim-lifestyle-festival-perkuat-ekonomi-syariah
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