Forecasting Slovak GDP based on metal commodity prices as a tool for policymakers

The paper examines the development of selected metal commodity prices in the global market in the context of the development of Slovakia´s GDP as a macroeconomic indicator GDP and identify which of the analyzed metal commodities are most closely linked to the Slovak economy. Research data were obtained from website Investing and Eurostat and converted into time series. Metal commodity prices were expressed in US dollars per ton, while GDP values were expressed in millions of US dollars. The data were processed using artificial intelligence, specifically recurrent neural networks with a Long Short Term Memory layer, which have strong potential to predict such types of time series. The experiment included predictive models based on artificial neural networks. Metal commodities also play a crucial role in the Slovak economy, and the research confirms that the development of copper, zinc and aluminum prices is correlated with Slovakia´s economic performance. Therefore, the country´s GDP can be forecasted with high accuracy based on the price movements of these selected metal commodities. The findings may assist policymakers as well as top management in the manufacturing industry, where input prices can be compared with developments in the national economy.