GUANGZHOU - A senior official from the Guangdong provincial capital has denied rumors that the city will scrap Cantonese to promote Mandarin in the near future.

"Promoting Mandarin does not mean Guangzhou has to eliminate its dialect," Su Zhijia, deputy Party secretary of Guangzhou, said on Monday.

"The city government has never had such a plan to abandon or weaken Cantonese," he said.