More than 700,000 Singaporeans looking for recession-busting bargains swamped an electronics fair over the weekend, forcing organisers to call in the police to maintain order.
Officers were deployed at an underground link to the venue of the IT Show 2009 from a train station to "manage the crowd", a spokesman for the Singapore Police Force confirmed Monday.
Despite a sharp economic slowdown and growing unemployment, the four-day annual fair that ended Sunday logged a record 768,000 visitors and raked in 58.5 million dollars (38.2 million US) in sales, organisers said.
Stands selling computers, cameras and other gadgets occupied several halls at the convention centre next to the banking district.
"It was really crowded and packed… (but) it was worth going because the items were going for rock-bottom prices," 23-year-old university student Pang Sern Yong told AFP after taking home a graphics card for his desktop computer.
Singapore, a city state of 4.8 million people, is entering what is widely forecast to be its worst recession in history.
The economy, which relies heavily on exports of semiconductors used in electronic products, is tipped to shrink by as much as 10 percent in 2009 if the global situation deteriorates further.
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