Abstract: Metal mineral resources are the foundation of industrial development, the basis of production, is an important mineral resources related to the overall national economy.Metal mineral resources are at the front of the whole production chain as raw materials, are imported into different economic sectors, into the final products, and then through consumption to support economic development.In this process, the role of metal mineral resources and the assessment of the importance of metal mineral resources to the economy is an important work.This article avoids the market scale and price of metal minerals, the value-added chain method is used to evaluate the economic importance of metal mineral resources according to the final use of mineral resources and the added value of the corresponding departments, at the same time, resource substitution is included in the calculation of economic importance.The results show that germanium, zirconium, indium, beryllium, rare earth, cadmium, tantalum and lithium are the most important economic metals, followed by non-ferrous metals such as antimony, tin, cobalt and copper, followed by silver and platinum, and finally by ferrous metals.