Reviewing Agricultural Trade Policies
To Promote Intra-OIC Agricultural Trade
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in these international standardization bodies is a challenge faced by many OIC member
countries but membership alone is not sufficient to ensure compliance since active involvement
in technical committees of these bodies is necessary.
COMCEC’s (2016) further analysis of three regional initiatives with respect to international
standards (APEC, ASEAN, and EAC) shows that the approach taken by the APEC as a guidance is
the most suitable for the OIC since APEC’s approach is a consensus-based model of collective
targets but it does not use legally binding instruments.
In the case of the Halal foods and beverages, there have already been some accomplished tasks
by the SMIIC such as
 General Guidelines on Halal Food (OIC/SMIIC 1:2011)
 Guidelines for Bodies Providing Halal Certification (OIC/SMIIC 2:2011)
 Guidelines for the Halal Accreditation Body Accrediting Halal Certification Bodies
(OIC/SMIIC 3:2011)
and two newTCs have been established in 2016 for “Halal Supply Chain” and “Halal Management
Systems.” Despite these developments, the process of Halal certification within the OIC has been
far from being completed. Some SMIIC member countries have only recently established their
national accreditation agencies that comply with SMIIC’s guidelines. These SMIIC guidelines are
to be developed through the Islamic jurisprudence, but the issue of Halal accreditation goes
beyond the religious dimension as it also carries great potential to eliminate technical barriers
on intra-OIC trade in certain agricultural products. In this respect, the currently growing interest
and awareness among the OIC countries in the field of Halal certification is an important
strength but this strength could be put into a broader perspective of establishing a unique Halal
certification in a timely manner. In fact, one strong target would be to establish this unique Halal
certification as a common certification that represents a larger set of hygiene and environmental
safety standards in all OIC markets just as in the case of CE marking of the European Economic
Area.
3.4.2. Policy analysis at the product and country levels
Table F.12 in Annex F presents the top 5 export products of the 57 OIC countries. The table
shows (i) the percentage share of the top export products in world exports of the product, (ii)
the share of the OIC as destination for the export of the product, and (iii) weighted average tariff
rates implemented for the product by the OIC countries against weighted average OIC tariff rates
for imports originating from the country.
The blue shaded cells in the table demonstrate that the country's share in total world exports of
the product is higher than the country's share in total world agricultural product exports
(products with prime significance for the country’s agricultural trade through exports). Overall,
for their top three export products, all countries except for the exports originating from Sierra
Leone have higher export shares in total world export of the product than the country’s overall
export share in total world agricultural exports. The situation is quite similar for the top 5 export
products, only with the exception of Chad, Comoros, Gabon, Guinea-Bissau and Sierra Leone for
which the share of their top products are lower than country’s share in world agricultural
exports. The top five export products of the OIC countries are thus significant agricultural export
products with relative importance when comparedwith overall exports of agricultural products.
Although the five products are significant agricultural export products of strategic importance,
the share of the OIC as export destination is quite low. The pink shaded cells denote the products