China denies plan of "World Biggest City"

Authorities in southern China's Guangdong province have denied planning to unite nine towns to create the world's biggest city in the Pearl River delta, state media reported Saturday.

"The reports were totally false. There is no such plan," Guo Yuewen, spokesman for the Communist party's provincial committee, was quoted as saying by the official China Daily .

Media had reported on a project to unite nine urban areas -- including both Guangzhou and Shenzhen -- into a megalopolis with a population of 42 million, according to the China Daily.

The Pearl River delta was one of the first Chinese regions to open up to foreign business in the 1980s and is now among its richest, a giant manufacturing hub that produces around 10 percent of the country's GDP.