DUBAI (AFP) - Governments from around the world are due to sign during a conference in Dubai an agreement to limit the hazards of chemicals worldwide, United Nations officials said.

Klaus Toepfer, executive director of the UN environment programme, said the agreement was due to be reached on Monday, at the end of the three-day International Conference on Chemicals Management (ICCM).

The agreement, dubbed the "Dubai Declaration on the Strategic Approach to International Chemicals Management (SAICM)," will be a global strategy for the production, transport, storage, use and disposal of chemicals worldwide.

The agreement has been an urgent matter because of chemical accidents as well as the health and environmental hazards in the production, use and disposal of chemicals around the world.

"There have been chemical accidents, spills and leaks. There are some 1,500 new chemicals marketed annually, in addition to about 100,000 chemicals already on the market," a UN official who did not wish to be identified told AFP.

"The agreement is a wide-ranging initiative ... needed to harmonize risk assessment, standardize labeling systems and encourage the exchange of the latest information on chemicals as well as the establishment of national awareness centers," he said.

The conference was organized as part of a series of forum and workshops, including the 9th special session of the UNEP Governing Council and the UNEP Global Ministerial Environment Forum due to be attended by a record of more than 120 government ministers from around the world.

As part of the events, UN Secretary General Kofi Annan was due to receive on Monday the "Zayed International Prize for Global Leadership on the Environment" which offers a 500,000-dollar award.

The prize also awards 300,000 dollars to the Malaysian organization Millennium Ecosystem Assessment and another 200,000 dollars to Angela Cropper, a senator in the parliament of Trinidad and Tobago, and Indonesia's former minister of environment Emil Salim.