On the modern highway that runs from Nanning, the capital of the southern province of Guangxi, down to Qinzhou port, something is conspicuously missing – large trucks carrying the kind of 40-foot cargo containers common at ports across the world.

The lack of freight points to the relative newness of the port on the Beibu Gulf just east of Vietnam. But the Chinese government hopes Qinzhou – the country’s sixth “free-trade port” – will eventually boost incomes in inland provinces, partly though growing levels of trade with southeast Asia.

Chinese premier Li Keqiang gave the port and Beijing’s so-called “western development strategy” some momentum when he visited Qinzhou in July. “Guangxi is the only provincial region with large ports in west China and it has the ability and conditions to become a strategic regional pivot for the whole of southwest China to develop a foreign-bound economy toward Asean [Association of Southeast Asian Nations],” Mr Li told workers at the port.