The new forecast is a turnaround from an earlier projection for a one percent rise in arrivals, according to the Singapore Tourism Board.

Yeo Khee Leng, the board's chief executive, said arrivals from the United States fell 25 percent on the year to 9566 in the two weeks after the September 11 suicide attacks in New York and Washington which left more than 6000 people dead or missing.

"The tragedies in the US are devastating and the effects are still unfolding across the world," Yeo told the Straits Times newspaper.

"In Singapore, the impact on tourism was immediately felt. Predictably, visitor arrivals from the US decreased dramatically."

Singapore, a small but affluent Southeast Asian island-republic, had earlier targetted eight million arrivals this year.

A spokeswoman for the Trade Development Board which helps organise exhibitions here told AFP that so far there have been no cancellations of scheduled events.

"But it's still early to tell its impact," she said

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