SHANGHAI (Reuters) -Promoting the use of aluminium to save copper would be conducive to maintaining the security of China's copper resource, the head of the country's base metals smelting industry group said on Wednesday.

China depends on overseas imports for 60% of its aluminium resources as opposed to 70% of its copper resources and finding ways to use more aluminium would save money and provide more security for the smelting industry, said Ge Honglin, chairman of the China Nonferrous Metals Industry Association (CNIA), at the Asia Copper Week conference.

"In terms of resources, copper is more precious and scarce compared to aluminium," Ge said.

"The price of copper is 77,000 yuan ($10,666) a ton and the price of aluminium is 21,000 yuan, so using aluminium instead of copper already presents economic advantages," Ge said.

In his speech, Ge emphasised the need for mergers and the reorganisation of copper refining capacity in China, the world's biggest consumer of the red metal used in electronics.

($1 = 7.2189 Chinese yuan renminbi)

(Reporting by Joe Cash and Amy Lv; Writing by Christian Schmollinger; Editing by Muralikumar Anantharaman and Lincoln Feast.)