Tajikistan’s government said yesterday that China plans to finance and build several outposts for Tajik border guards along the Tajik-Afghan border, according to Reuters.

A Tajik government decree reportedly said the move would bolster Tajik security.

The decree said the government instructed the State Committee for National Security (SCNS) to sign an agreement with China to provide for the construction of eleven outposts of different sizes, as well as a training center for Tajik border guards.

China, which according to official statistics sells goods worth $2.5 billion a year to Tajikistan, reportedly built one outpost on the Tajik-Afghan border, its first one, earlier this year.

Tajikistan’s 1,345-kilometer common border with Afghanistan is a major concern for Dushanbe, as Afghan drug smugglers regularly clash with Tajik border guards and Afghan Taliban militants increase their activities along the border, Reuters reports.

A large part of the main highway connecting Tajikistan's most populous regions to China lies along the same border and armed trespassers this year kidnapped several Tajiks doing maintenance works on that road.