President of the Volta Regional House of Chiefs, Togbe Afede XIV, has told China's ambassador to Ghana, Gong Jianzhong, that the Chinese government should explore for diamonds and other minerals in the Volta Basin, the ghanaweb.com news site reports.

The Volta Basin, which Afede described as a mineral "treasure trove," lies partly in Ghana (42%) and partly in Burkina Faso to Ghana's north (43%), with small parts of the region in Togo, the Ivory Coast, Mali, and Benin.

In addition to the basin's mineral wealth (besides diamond deposits, the region contains gold, copper, lead, oil, and iron ore), it contains the largest man-made lake in the world and fertile agricultural ground, as well as tourism potential.

Afede told Jianzhong that the countries surrounding the basin were "proverbially thirsty, while standing in the middle of the river," and urged China to take advantages of the region's "favorable investment environment."

Ghana is already a diamond producer on a relatively small scale; in 2009 the country exported approximately 376,000 million carats of rough diamonds with a total value of $6.98 million.