Abstract: Thirty years past since China's reform and opening policy, during which China's nonferrous metal industry got great achievements, and we could divide the three decades development of it into four stages. In order to give an overall economic benefit evaluation, we built up an input and output index system, and then calculated it with a DEA model; finally we gave an overall economic benefit assessment on China's nonferrous metals industry. This showed that the model and the evaluation results have high application values, and can provide some valuable advices for the government and the industry when making industrial policies.