University of Macau (UM) student Guo Yanzhi has won the 18th Portuguese Speech Contest for Macau university students, the Department of Portuguese under UM’s Faculty of Arts and Humanities announced on Friday.

The university announced in writing that professors belonging to the University of Macau, the Macau University of Science and Technology, and the Macao Polytechnic Institute picked eight students who gave speeches in Portuguese about the proposition that there is neither everlasting harm nor never-ending good, the University of Macau says.

The contest is meant to increase interest among Macao students in learning Portuguese, and to reward those that do best, the university says.

Portuguese-language newspaper Jornal Tribuna de Macau, Portuguese foundation Fundação Oriente, and Banco Nacional Ultramarino SA, a local bank owned by Caixa Geral de Depósitos, a Portuguese state-owned bank, sponsored the prizes this year, according to the University of Macau announcement.