The Infocomm Media Business Exchange (imbX), the annual highlight of the tech world here, is another victim of the recession, its organiser Singapore Exhibition Services said.

With less than two weeks to go before the official opening on June 16 at Singapore Expo, just 1,928 exhibitors have booked booths at the show, which includes telecommunications show CommunicAsia and television-related show Broadcast Asia.

They will take up about 58,000 square metres of space.

Last year, about 2,300 firms exhibited at the show.

Budgets are also smaller.

Of the 8,400 pre-registered visitors, they say they have an estimated purse of US$1.8 billion (S$2.59 billion). This is a far cry from last year's estimated budget of US$4.8 billion that firms had set aside.

Despite the smaller show, chief executive of Singapore Exhibition Services Stephen Tan said at a press briefing on Friday that '$1.8 billion is nothing to cry about.'

'I do not know of any trade exhibitions in the world that have gone any bigger or even just stayed the same size this year,' he added.

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