MANILA  — The Asian Development Bank (ADB) is helping to enhance the infrastructure and services in Pakistan’s Sialkot City, known as the world’s football manufacturing capital that supplied footballs to the ongoing 2022 FIFA World Cup in Qatar.

The Manila-based ADB said in a video released on Friday that it was helping to enhance “infrastructure and services” in several cities in Pakistan’s eastern Punjab province, including Sialkot where over 70 percent of the world’s footballs are fabricated.

“If you ever played football, chances are the ball was made in Sialkot,” the ADB stated, adding it was “helping deliver reliable water supply, improve sanitation systems, and develop accessible, green public spaces” in the city.

“We have international customers,” said Sialkot Airport chairman Khwaja Masood Akhtar. “It is very important that the city’s infrastructure, like roads, railways, airports, and dry ports, should be up to mark. (Xinhua)