President Paul Kagame has recognised the transformative impact of investing in sports and sports infrastructure, saying it reaches other sectors of the economy.

"Sports necessarily unifies people," Kagame said during the Basketball Africa League (BAL) Investors Summit held in Kigali on Friday, May 22, just hours before BAL Playoffs started at BK Arena.

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"In Rwanda’s case, we have seen a lot of benefits. We can see how it has increased numbers in tourism, people who want to come to Rwanda, people come for conferences, they come for events like this. It comes to choices you make; it comes to mindset as well."

He also reflected on the improvement of countries and organisations working together on such events.

"When countries come together, when leagues come together, when people come together, the benefits are multiplied by a much bigger factor," Kagame said.

"You don’t want to have such a good thing isolated in one region or one country. The more people that work together, that come together, it forms a much bigger market that makes sense of everything you are doing."

The sixth edition of the BAL playoffs at BK Arena will run until May 31. Rwanda will be represented by the RSSB Tigers.