Religious groups have welcomed Government moves to protect meat slaughter methods.
The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs rejected calls to make it a requirement for livestock to be stunned before being killed.
The recommendation safeguards the methods used by orthodox Jewish and Muslim communities, which require the animal to be conscious. The Muslim method produces halal meat. The Jewish shechita method produces kosher meat.
Haji Jaber, secretary at the Jamia Mosque in Waterloo Road, Middlesbrough, said a decision to ban halal meat would have undermined the welfare of animals.
He said: "It is better having some sort of control than none at all.
"The outcome of a ban would have been more back street slaughterhouses, but right now we have proper slaughterhouses making sure animals are taken care of properly."
The announcement comes in response to a report from the Farm Animal Welfare Council (FAWC) which described the practice of slaughter without stunning animals as "unacceptable".
But although ministers agreed 94 other recommendations, they said a ban would "export the problem".
Animal welfare minister Ben Bradhsaw said: "We are grateful to FAWC for their work, seeking to improve the welfare of farm animals - a goal we share.
"We will not ban the production of halal or kosher meat - a ban could in any case simply result in kosher and halal meat being imported.
"We would therefore be exporting the problem, resulting in no overall improvement in animal welfare."
The Government is now carrying out a 12-week consultation on its response to the report.
