THE World Trade Organisation's Appellate Body turned away a Chinese appeal against a US law targeting unfair trade subsidies, say it did not have enough information to support appeal against an earlier WTO ruling.

The American tariffs hit solar panel cells, steel products, off-road tyres, aluminum goods and towers for windfarms, a trade China valued of trade at US$7.2 billion a year.

China had claimed that the US 'Public Law 112-99', also known as the GTX legislation, which was signed by President Barack Obama in March 2012, broke world trade rules, but a WTO dispute panel said it did not.

But the Appellate Body disagreed with several of the panel's intepretations of the law while saying it did not have enough information to rule, thus leaving the earlier ruling in force, Reuters reports.

Yet the Appellate Body also ruled that the United States had wrongly "double counted" when punishing Chinese goods for being both subsidised and unfairly priced.

In Beijing, the Ministry of Commerce said the dispute was "another significant victory of China's challenge against the United States？| abuse of trade remedy measures".