Young entrepreneurs should focus on ethics in business, improving quality of goods and services, says Youth Affairs secretary

Businesses must focus on following ethics and improving the quality of goods and services that they produce, said Meeta Rajivlochan, Secretary, Department of Youth Affairs, noting that young entrepreneurs must take forward this agenda.   "The most important commodity in business today is trust. We need robust institutional mechanisms for this going forward," she said at the FICCI Young Leaders Award on Thursday, underlining that young entrepreneurs should follow the dictates of "dhamma" in doing business.   While many institutional changes such as the goods and services tax and the digital public infrastructure have taken place but there continue to be concerns over ethics in business and the quality of goods and services produced in India, Rajivlochan said, adding that there have been some deviations in this in the recent past.   "How do we build Brand India? Young entrepreneurs can work on this to show that Brand India is the word for quality and value," she said.   She pointed out that in the past, countries such as Japan and China had also faced questions over the quality of their products but managed to overcome these concerns and “get their act together”. India can do the same, she underlined.   She also urged young entrepreneurs nots to look at the West for setting standards for goods and services but work on making Indian products world class. “Several non tariff barriers are also around quality,” she noted.   Lack of trust can also lead to higher costs for businesses, she noted, adding that building trust can lead to positive things.    Her comments come at a time when India has been working to increase private investments in the manufacturing sector and become a global manufacturing hub through initiatives such as Make In India scheme and production linked incentive scheme.