Halal-certified bakeries in Malaysia can now put Christmas greetings on cakes for their customers, reversing a 3 year ban.
Malaysia’s Department of Islamic Development, JAKIM said that the new directive replaces a previous order which barred the businesses from writing Merry Christmas on their products.
The issue on the ban of the word ‘Christmas greetings’ was popularised in social media by a local bakery chain, Berry’s which updated that its cakes were only allowed to write ‘Season’s greetings’ despite requests from customers.
JAKIM later decided to remove the 3 year ban and released a statement in response to Berry’s online memo. In addition, JAKIM will also review and re-evaluate issues related to the Malaysian halal certification procedure.
Berry and other bakery manufacturers welcome the move by JAKIM.
Around 65% of Malaysian population are Muslims, however it has a large minority of Chinese and Indian communities who are Buddhists, Hindus and Christians. Malaysia is striving hard to be a global leader in halal certification, as such, it is relatively stringent on the application and monitoring of companies that have received the halal cert from JAKIM.
