Can Vietnam achieve millennium development goal on poverty reduction in high inflation and economic stagnation?

An important goal of Millennium Development Goals that Vietnam committed is to reduce the overall and food poverty. Although Vietnam has achieved remarkable reduction in poverty during the recent years, Vietnam might not achieve its MDG on poverty reduction because of high inflation and economic stagnation. This paper uses three recent Vietnam Household Living Standard Surveys in 2002, 2004 and 2004 to forecast poverty in 2008 and 2010 to examine whether Vietnam can achieve its MDG on poverty reduction. The forecasts take into account high inflation in 2008 and economic stagnation during 2008-2009. It is found that Vietnam can be able to achieve its MDG on reduction of overall poverty given that the economic growth rate during 2008-2009 is equal to half of the growth rate during 2006-2007. However, the MDG on reduction of food poverty might not be achieved.