Egypt will no longer require halal certification for imported dairy products, Prime Minister Mostafa Madbouly announced Sunday, marking a permanent change aimed at boosting trade ties with the United States.
Halal certification ensures all ingredients and processes comply fully with Islamic law, including the exclusion of alcohol, pork derivatives, and even minor additives such as emulsifiers, colorants, and flavorings, according to Halal Certification Europe and the American Halal Foundation.
“On March 12, 2025, we formally notified the exemption under the WTO Agreement on Technical Barriers to Trade,” Madbouly said during the US-Egypt Business Forum held in Cairo.
The Ministry of Agriculture is also working to diversify the list of recognized halal-certifying bodies and studying a reduction in fees for halal conformity assessments for food exporters.
Last week, President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi publicly criticized Egypt's failure to produce infant formula locally, saying, “Is it reasonable that we import 40 to 45 million cans of baby formula without building a single local factory? I've said this for years.”
Madbouly responded by pointing to high production costs. “Every 10 kilograms of fresh milk yields just one kilogram of powder used in formula, which makes it an expensive process. We've offered this to the private sector repeatedly,” he said.
In October, former head of the Livestock and Poultry Development Sector at the Ministry of Agriculture Dr. Mohamed Farag said the country produces about 7.5 million tons of milk annually, with a supply gap of approximately 2.5 to 3 million tons.
The government is also working to open registration to new companies authorized to issue halal certificates, in a move aimed at promoting competition and reducing costs, Minister of Investment and Trade Hassan El-Khatib said at the US-Egypt Business Forum.
Cabinet Spokesperson Mohamed El-Homsany clarified that the decision aims to encourage private-sector participation in certification issuance following complaints about the lack of alternatives. “We're looking at lowering conformity assessment fees to help reduce final consumer prices,” he said in a statement.
This comes after a series of controversies surrounding Egypt's halal certification process. In January, former US Senator Bob Menendez was sentenced to 11 years in prison for corruption involving bribes from three businessmen and the Egyptian government. The bribes included a Mercedes-Benz car, jewelry, luxury trips, and an upscale apartment in Washington, D.C.
The scandal centered on Egypt’s decision to grant exclusive halal certification rights to Wael Hana, an Egyptian American businessman with no prior experience in meat trading or Islamic dietary compliance.
His company, IS EG Halal, was given sole authority to issue halal certificates for all US meat exports to Egypt, replacing a system in which seven American companies shared the responsibility at significantly lower fees—just $10 to $20 per metric ton. Under the new monopoly, fees reportedly soared to $5,000 per shipment.
After other US-based companies, many of them owned by Egyptian immigrants, lost their business, the Egyptian government informed meat exporters in Brazil and Latin America that it would only accept certificates from a single company, IS EG Halal. This exclusivity later expanded to India and other countries, with Hana appointing representatives worldwide.
