Chinese machinery maker Sany Heavy Industry Co Ltd said on Friday the company did not participate in a project to build a 100-km-long canal in southern Thailand's Kra Isthmus that cuts through the Indian Ocean and the Gulf of Thailand, contrary to widely spread online reports.

Guangxi LiuGong Group Co Ltd said in a Friday statement that reports, which have claimed that Liugong is the leading sponsor of the project, "was not true and Liugong currently does not have any cooperation deals with Thailand in building the Kra Canal".

Online reports said in recent days that a team of Chinese companies, including Sany, Xuzhou Construction Machinery Group Co Ltd and Guangxi Liugong, has begun construction on the canal. The reports said that Kra Canal will open global trade routes for the Association of Southeast Asian Nations. Currently trade routes run through the Strait of Malacca, a narrow stretch of water between the Malay Peninsula and the Indonesian island of Sumatra that is 805 km in length.