The next round of world trade talks could herald a breakthrough for poor countries, Patricia Hewitt has predicted.

The trade and industry secretary told a TUC conference on globalisation and gender that the next round of World Trade Organisation talks at Cancun in September could build on the historic CAP reforms agreed by the EU this week.

Hewitt, who is also minister for women, said that women workers in Third World countries are being left behind by an increasingly globalised economy.

On the day the Trade Justice Movement began a 24-hour lobbying marathon of MPs, the minister said remoteness and ignorance were no longer an excuse for inaction on Third World issues.

"As a trading nation, we know that what happens in one country has consequence elsewhere. And this makes the pictures of starvation all the more unsettling. Particularly after the divisions and disagreements over Iraq," she said.

Hewitt argued that international trade offers developing countries a way out of the cycle of poverty and debt so reforming the rules on trade subsidies and tariffs was crucial.

She highlighted the case of Ghana which in 1955 was 25 per cent richer than South Korea but is now seven times worse off.

"Once the opportunity out of poverty is there, countries are on the escalator out of the poverty. If people have a chance of a better life they'll take it," she said.

Hewitt highlighted the absurdities of aid budgets and trade rules that were in effect taking with one and while giving with the other.

"It costs us twice as much to make sugar in the EU as it does in Mozambique. Yet we're rigging the market. And giving them £136 million in aid. This is less than they would make for themselves if the markets weren't rigged," she said.

The Cancun meetings were an ideal opportunity for change, particularly following the changes to CAP announced by Europe this week."Instead of trying to fight against globalisation, we must seize the opportunity we have at Cancun - less than 50 working days away - and make sure we get a deal that is good for Britain and good for the developing world.

"We will push the WTO as hard as we can to get an agreement that works for developing countries and their future prosperity," she said.

Hewitt said the government would not be pushing a Britain-first agenda at the trade summit.

"We are not in these trade negotiations merely to promote UK plc. We are doing it because it's right," she said.