Caglayan is scheduled to attend a Turkey-Syria business forum in Damascus, along with Syrian Trade Minister Lami Assi and the Syrian Deputy Premier Abdallah al-Dardari.

The Turkish minister will also hold talks with Syrian Premier Muhammad al-Utri and other high ranking officials.

This is the fourth high profile Turkish minister and businesspeople have made to Syria in a year.

Turkish officials say trade volume between the two countries climed 49-percent in 2008, to nearly 2-Billion U-S dollars.

Turkish exports to Syrian constituted a major part of that trade, at nearly 1-and-half Billion dollars last year.

Meantime, Turkey´s imports from Syria were down 48 percent last year to 327 million dollars.

Officials say that was mainly due to a drop in oil prices.