Causeway congestion slowing Deepavali sales

Crunch time: Bazaar vendors in Johor Baru are seeing a drop in sales due to worsening traffic on the Causeway and Malaysians tightening their belts.

JOHOR BARU: Although Deepavali is just a few days away, traders are complaining of slow sales with a noticeable decline in customers from Singapore compared to previous years.

R. M. Narayanan, a manager at an apparel store in the city centre, said there was a dip of about 40% in sales this year as a bulk of their customer base were Singaporeans.