University of Malaya (UM), the country's oldest institution of higher learning will not be affected by the recent budget cuts on higher education as it will look for other options to diversify its income.

University Malaya's (UM) deputy vice-chancellor for student affairs, Prof Datuk Dr Rohana Yusof said the recent budget cut would have low impact on UM as the university had other sources of income mainly from its subsidiaries.

"Actually, we have already anticipated the budget cut even before the announcement (Budget 2016), so we have already laid out our plans of what to do even before the announcement.

"I don't think it will affect UM that much as we have other alternative sources of income coming from our subsidiaries such as International University of Malaya Wales (IUMW) and our upcoming project University Malaya Health Metropolis (UMHM)," she told Bernama here.

She was commenting on the 2016 Budget in which the allocation for Higher Education was reduced from RM15.785 billion in 2015 to RM13.378 billion this year.

Rohana said UMHM, which is expected to be operational in 2017, would be the country’s first premier medical hub.

"When operational, the medical hub will house healthcare hotel, research centre, convention and exhibition facilities, and it will contribute significantly in UM’s effort towards becoming a world class research university," she said.

She said UM would also welcome more involvement from the private sector to invest in their programmes or other joint ventures together.

"We also have plans to develop our own University Malaya commercial area where we will have office complexes for business to set up their office there, but it is still early as we are still in the planning stages.

"I think in this competitive era, universities should be more creative in bringing in revenues, for example, we can learn from Chulalongkorn University in Thailand where they have their own mall," she said.

She also assured the public that the education fees would not be increased.