BRUSSELS The UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) Tuesday proposed setting up a 98 million-dollar fund to help the world's least developed countries improve the safety and quality of their food products.

The proposal was made at the Third UN Conference on the Least Developed Countries.

The fund would support projects to develop, rehabilitate, upgrade and sustain national food safety and quality systems in the least developed countries. It would also assist them to comply with international requirements and help them participate in international standard-setting bodies such as the Codex Alimentarius Commission.

"Improving the safety and quality standards of least developed countries agricultural and fisheries products would significantly improve their export performance and, at the same time, protect their domestic consumers and those in importing countries," FAO says.

The fund would be set up with voluntary contributions from bilateral and multilateral donors. It would take about $2 million per country, or 98 million dollars in total, for the 49 least developed countries, to achieve this objective within 3-5 years, DPA quoted FAO as saying.

"The economies of least developed countries now have to compete in a more fiercely competitive and increasingly globalized world market," FAO's Assistant Director General Hartwig de Haen said.

Underlining the "crucial importance" of investment in agriculture, De Haen pointed out that "most least developed countries are far from being at a cutting edge of available agricultural technology and there is great potential to increase both productivity and production."