Utusan Melayu (Malaysia) Bhd plans to sustain its newsprint business while also venturing into other businesses to broaden its earnings base.

This is to mitigate the group’s declining revenue which has dropped to RM291.2 million for the financial year ended Dec 31, 2014 (FY14) from RM342.4 million in FY13, with the newsprint division making up 96 percent of revenue.

The group has incurred a bigger net loss of RM81.9 million in FY14 compared with RM16.2 million in FY13.

“We acknowledge that as the largest contributor to the group, the newsprint revenue is falling, but by venturing into other businesses, it will act as a support to the newspaper business,” said its group managing director, Mohd Noordin Abbas.

He said Utusan had invested in a skill-based institute - Institut Vokasional Utusan (IVU), that will start operating by the first quarter of 2016.

“We have invested less than RM1 million in IVU which will use the facilities provided at Kompleks Sri Utusan Bangi.

“As a start, IVU will be provided with 150 students by the government and they will be offered 10 industry courses like journalism, photography, graphic design and animation,” he told the media after the company’s annual general meeting in Kuala Lumpur today.

Meanwhile, Noordin said Utusan was stepping into social media in line with the demand of online news.

“We are connected with the social media chambers where we have organised a few events and we are also in talks with bloggers as a move for us to find ways to disseminate through the new media.

“With all these efforts going on, we are looking for a stronger footing in the coming years,” he said.

- Bernama