Dozens of cranes lift blocks weighing several tons and drop them to compact the soil of a roughly one-square-mile area on Peru’s Pacific coast, part of China’s most ambitious port project in Latin America designed to facilitate trade between the regions.

The port of Chancay, 60 kilometers (37 miles) north of the Peruvian capital of Lima, will be “the gateway from South America to Asia,” said Mario de las Casas, institutional affairs manager of COSCO Shipping, a Chinese state-owned company that is the majority owner of the project.

De las Casas said the $1.3 billion project will offer a direct route to China with a travel time reduction for ships of 10 days. COSCO officials say ships traveling from South America to China normally take more than 45 days with stops in Central America, Mexico or the United States.