BEIJING, June 28 (Xinhua) -- China hopes that members of the World Trade Organization will firmly support the multilateral trade system and jointly address challenges to the system, a senior official with China's Ministry of Commerce said Thursday.

"The most important WTO mechanism is the trade dispute settlement mechanism, whose Appellate Body is facing a serious shortage of members," MOC Deputy Minister Wang Shouwen said at a press conference.

There should be seven Appellate Body members, but now three are vacant and they cannot be filled as one WTO member is standing in the way, which might lead to the body's stagnation.

Another challenge facing the WTO is that one of its members is using the "Section 301," a section assumed illegal by the WTO, to impose restrictions on its trade partners

Meanwhile, one WTO member is also abusing 'national security exception' articles on steel and aluminium products and even plans to use them on automobile products in the future, which will make WTO rules hard to implement if other members follow suit.

The impact would be big if these challenges could not be settled, as the WTO is playing a critical role in global trade liberalization and facilitation, said Wang.

The official said China hopes that all WTO members could take a long-term perspective and firmly support the multilateral trade system and jointly work to address challenges to the system, to safeguard the effectiveness and authority of the WTO.

WTO members should enhance the organization's functions of policy review, negotiation and dispute settlement mechanism, said Wang.

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