The Andhra Pradesh Economic Development Board (APEDB) on Wednesday signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with French sports goods manufacturing firm Decathlon.

APEDB is a single point of contact for investments, trade and partnership in Andhra Pradesh.

Decathlon is planning to open stores in Vijayawada, Visakhapatnam and Amaravati.

“Andhra Pradesh is building sports infrastructure at an accelerated pace and Amaravati will be India’s first planned city developed for sports and fitness with sports training academies, infrastructure facilities and quality playing turfs”, said APEDB chief executive officer, J Krishna Kishore, reported Deccan Chronicle.

He added that sports is increasingly becoming accessible to many and hoped that Decathlon will increase its presence in Andhra Pradesh.

It must be noted that AP government has chosen Visakhapatnam, Tirupati and Amaravati as future sports cities, and will further launch ten more sports academies in various parts of the state.

The government also intends to complete a multi-sports 79-acre complex in Visakhapatnam by 2018.

Earlier, in February, the government had signed an MoU with Visa and Thomson Reuters, to develop Visakhapatnam as a FinTech hub of the country.