China State Shipbuilding Corp (CSSC)  and China Shipbuilding Industry Co (CSIC) on Thursday denied media reports of a merger of their companies, following a switch in senior executives between the two companies.

CSIC and CSSC's listed arm China CSSC Holdings Ltd said in two separate statements filed with the Shanghai Stock Exchange that they had received no information about a merger from the government authorities and that they were not planning such a deal.

"It's just a normal change of company directors," Chen Qi, the spokesperson of CSSC, told the Global Times on Thursday. "We don't expect any new joint venture."

There were market speculations that CSSC and CSIC will merge, following the announcement on CSIC's website on Wednesday that the former chairman of CSSC Hu Wenming had become the new chairman of CSIC, while Dong Qiang, former vice president of CSIC, was designated to lead CSSC. 

CSSC and CSIC were both spun off from the same State-run shipbuilding corporation in 1999, and their operating locations are divided by the Yangtze River, according to media reports.

In January, domestic news portal chinashipnews.com reported that as their business does not overlap, they hope to see a merger between CSSC and CSIC, which would make the new joint venture more competitive in the market, citing several unnamed former executives of CSSC.

CSIC is mainly involved in shipbuilding and repairing bases, information on its website showed.

In contrast, CSSC set a goal for 2015 to expand its business from shipbuilding to its counterpart's fields of business such as hydraulic engineering and power generation, according to its website.

Following the news, China CSSC Holdings saw its shares rise 9.99 percent, closing at 46.46 yuan ($7.48) on Thursday.

The shares of CSIC on the Shanghai bourse soared 10 percent, closing at 10.44 yuan on Thursday.

However, Nie Lijuan, vice secretary-general of China Association of the National Shipbuilding Industry, did not regard the leadership adjustment as a move toward a potential combination between the two.

"I don't see any sign of a new merger," Nie told Global Times on Thursday, without further elaboration.

The switch of leaders does not mean two companies will share their own resources with each other, she said, refusing to comment on the potential merger between CSSC and CSIC nor on their further cooperation.

This merger, if it goes ahead, would not be the first combination of resources among State-owned companies in the same industry. In September 2014, the two largest State-owned train manufacturers in China - CSR Corp and China CNR Corp - also publicly denied their merger in an issued statement.

However, the two corporations agreed in December to merge into a new venture, in a move that analysts said was mainly intended to prevent unhealthy competition.