Preparations are underway for Ghana to initial a Bilateral Trade Treaty with the United States.

A delegation from the Executive Office of the US Trade Representative therefore started off a two-day discussion here on Wednesday with their Ghanaian counterparts on details of the treaty.

Addressing the opening session of the discussions, the US Trade Representative, Ron Kirk noted that Ghana was one of the key future partners of the United States, hence the need for such a treaty.

"This is about creating more investment opportunities for US companies in Ghana, helping Ghana in its economic growth and creating more jobs," Kirk said.

Before investors go to any country, Kirk believed they would look for strong stable democratic governance, the respect of rights of the people to determine their living and have an open transparent system of making rules in which businesses understand what the terms of the game are and can make judgments based on those rules.

He expected that when Americans risk capital in bringing money to Ghana, to help build its economy, Ghanaians would treat these businesses the way they would be treated elsewhere.

"And you will see the level of investment, not only from the United States, but also others in the world that know what is happening in Ghana," he added.

The delegation according to the Trade Representative came to Ghana, also to let Ghanaians understand just how much America invested in their country, adding: "For every development trade tool that we have, we have chosen Ghana as a partner. Ghana is only one of four countries in the world that is a partner for growth for the United States."

The Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC) just last February completed a successful MCC compact of around half a billion dollars in the West African country, and is still working on developing the proposals for a potential second compact, according to the delegation.

The US and Ghana had held preliminary discussions about the benefits of Ghana initialing a bilateral investment treaty with the United States, during the visit by President Atta Mills to the US in May.

Ghana's trade minister, Hannah Tetteh was grateful for the confidence reposed in the country's economy.

"We already have the trade and investment framework agreement in place and going the next step to have a bilateral investment treaty, I think that with this range of tools there should be sufficient confidence especially in the US business sector to invest in Ghana," She said.