KUALA LUMPUR, May 17 — Yang di-Pertuan Agong Al-Sultan Abdullah Ri’ayatuddin Al-Mustafa Billah Shah congratulated Malaysian student Pavit Coran for emerging as the champion of the English Speaking Union (ESU) International Public Speaking Competition held virtually last Friday.

Al-Sultan Abdullah also expressed his joy and pride over the excellent achievement of Pavit, 19, a student of the Multimedia University (MMU) Melaka Campus, for helping Malaysia to shine on the global stage.

"His Majesty also expressed hope that Pavit’s success would inspire other Malaysians, especially students and youths to work harder to create success stories in their respective fields,” according to the statement posted on Istana Negara’s official Instagram page today.

The King also wished Pavit all the best for his future undertakings and prayed that he would continue to make Malaysia proud.

Pavit, who represented the English Speaking Union of Malaysia (ESUM) emerged champion after defeating 35 other contestants from 33 countries.

In his five-minute presentation, Pavit spoke of the increase in the number of people suffering from depression across the world and urged the world community and the government to pay attention to the issue.

"This is the second time a Malaysian won the Best Public Speaker award at the annual competition after Marina Tan in 2011. Congratulations.” the statement read. — Bernama

*Editor's note: An earlier version of this article erroneously referred to Pavit Coran as being an MSU student and has since been corrected.