At present, there are 10 ethnic minorities in China who believe in Islam, among which the Uygur, Kazak, Kirgiz, Uzbek, Tajik and Tatar are mainly distributed in Xinjiang. Hui, Dongxiang, Salar and Bao 'an are mainly distributed in Gansu, Ningxia, Qinghai and other places.

After years of development, the halal food industry has basically formed a development model that centers on the above-mentioned traditional Muslim ethnic communities and gradually expands to the whole country. From the perspective of sales revenue, in 2016, Xinjiang accounted for the largest share of sales revenue in the national halal food industry, accounting for 17.06% of sales revenue in the national halal food industry. Henan followed, accounting for 14.24%. Ningxia ranked third, accounting for 6.65%.

Xinjiang has become one of the largest markets for halal food in China. On the one hand, Xinjiang is the largest province where Muslims live, with a population of 13 to 14 million, accounting for more than 65% of Xinjiang's total population, and there is a huge demand for halal food. On the other hand, in recent years, Xinjiang has actively promoted the development of the catering industry by focusing on the branding, specialty and scale construction of the catering industry, which has guided the development direction of the halal food industry in Xinjiang.

Drived by the broad market demand and supported by the Party committee and government of Xinjiang Autonomous Region, the Halal food industry in Xinjiang continues to expand and improve. In terms of products, China's halal food is enriched with cultural connotation from the non-true halal food such as walnut and red dates at the beginning, to the halal food such as roasted mutton kebabs, hand-held rice, naan and big dish chicken displayed and sold later. In terms of market size, from 2012 to 2016, the overall market size of Xinjiang halal food enterprises has achieved an annual compound growth rate of 13.27%, which is expected to reach about 79.6 billion yuan in 2018.

Compared with Xinjiang, although the number of ethnic minorities with halal eating habits in Henan province is only 1.3 million, it does not prevent Henan province from becoming a major province of halal food production, consumption and logistics. At present, Henan has more than 47,500 halal food enterprises and businesses, including more than 1,000 halal food enterprises with size and quota above, and more than 10,000 restaurants, forming an industrial cluster with halal grain and oil, halal meat products, halal dairy products, halal condiments, halal baked goods and halal catering as the main categories.

In 2012, the scale of halal food market in Henan Province reached 26.40 billion yuan, ranking at the forefront of the halal food industry in China. Since then, the market size of halal food in Henan Province has continued to grow rapidly, exceeding 57 billion yuan in 2016. By 2022, Henan's halal food market is expected to reach 79.4 billion yuan.

Ningxia's halal food industry also occupies a certain position in the whole country. From 2012 to 2016, the average annual compound growth rate of the overall market size of Ningxia's halal food enterprises is 11.55%, and it is estimated to be about 34.5 billion yuan in 2018.

Compared with Xinjiang and Henan, the development of the halal food industry in Ningxia is relatively unsatisfactory. The problem lies in that most of the existing halal food enterprises in Ningxia are small in scale and lack of funds, which restricts the development space of the halal food industry in Ningxia. Moreover, the quality of employees in the existing halal food enterprises is low, which is not conducive to long-term development. In addition, the lack of healthy competition and cooperation awareness among enterprises and the imperfect market standard system are also the challenges faced by the Ningxia Halal industry.

Halal food industry has a promising future

Islam has a history of 1,400 years in China, especially in the northwestern part of the country. There are more than 20 million Muslims in China, and the large number of Muslims have a rigid demand for halal food, which will become the core driving force for the sustainable development of China's halal food industry.

Halal food enterprise in our country at the same time, with the help of a great opportunity of rapid economic development and the internationalization of halal food products exhibition, not only has acquired certain capital accumulation, but also stimulate their active participation in international market competition consciousness, halal food industry in China with wider areas of cooperation between the Muslim countries in the world, Muslim-dominated countries are increasingly becoming important trading partners for China.

In general, China's halal food industry is in a stage of rapid growth with promising development prospects. It is estimated that by 2022, the market size of China's halal food industry will reach 718.7 billion yuan.