The Ghana Rice Inter-professional Body, GRIB is stepping up efforts to introduce new standards for the production of local-rice by the end of the year. This entails instituting quality-control mechanisms to ensure local-rice is produced to meet the international standards. It would see GRIB become the certifying-body for locally produced rice. The President, Imoro Amoro tells JOY BUSINESS, the initiative is part of measures to turn around the fortunes of the local rice industry. “Is just like that of the imported rice which are branded as Thai-rice Association and the American Rice Association etc. GRIB as the umbrella body for the local rice industry and would therefore want to standardize locally-produced rice” he noted. According to him, packaging is a major factor to be considered to ensure local rice competes favorably with imported ones on the market. “Packaging is one of our biggest problems because the local packaging cannot be compared to that of the imported rice. So if we want to address this to we at least guarantee the quality of the rice that can equally be appealing as that of the imported ones” he concluded.