Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr. will accompany a group of Utah trade officials and companies to Israel beginning Monday, aimed at helping build ties between the two nations and foster business opportunities.

"For Governor Huntsman, this trade mission is all about relationship-building and ensuring companies from Utah have the connections they need in Israel and likewise any Israeli companies that have an interest in doing business in Utah have that connection as well," said the governor's spokeswoman, Lisa Roskelley.

The delegation will visit Jerusalem and Tel Aviv, meeting with Israeli government officials and the Palestinian Authority, as well as U.S. officials in the region.

They will tour the BrightSource Solar farm in the Negev desert south of Jerusalem, an array of 1,600 mirrors that generates up to 6 megawatts of electricity. They will also see demonstrations of drip irrigation technologies and a wastewater treatment plant.

For two days of the trip, representatives of Utah companies will meet with Israeli counterparts to discuss possible collaboration and business opportunities. The governor's office would not release the names of the companies that are participating in the event until they depart on Monday.

The group will attend a reception hosted by the American-Israel Friendship League, a non-profit group created to build ties between the two countries. Utah Attorney General Mark Shurtleff founded a Utah Chapter of the Friendship League and he is also participating on the trip.

Huntsman is scheduled to lay a memorial wreath during a visit to the Yad-Vashem Holocaust Museum, and the delegation also plans to visit the Western Wall, Dome of the Rock and Garden Tomb.

The governor has led similar trade missions to Mexico, China and India. The companies taking part in the trip are paying for their own expenses.

The governor had been scheduled to travel from Israel to China with a group of Western governors, but that trip was cancelled because of concerns about the spread of swine flu.

Roskelley said the cancellation was primarily to respect the concerns of other Western governors.

"The H1N1 virus in Utah has been a controlled situation so far, so Governor Huntsman felt comfortable that it's a situation that is being handled," she said.