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Finance Minister Surapong Suebwonglee said the fair, which ended on Sunday, was a great success.

Although some cynics may have dubbed the fair just another of the government's populist measures, the attendance figures indicate that for consumers, lower costs for goods and services is their top priority as the cost of living continues to soar.

About 1 million people visited the four-day fair and spent Bt30 billion at the hundreds of One Tambon One Product (Otop) booths, and Bt25 billion in deposits were made at the Krung Thai Bank (KTB) booth.

Although most booths were crowded over the four days of the fair, the KTB booth was especially popular, with the bank offering a deposit rate of 6 per cent.

This was no surprise, given the rising cost of fuel, food and expectations that inflation will continue to rise. The prospect of cheap goods drew more than 200,000 visitors to Muang Thong Thani each day.

In addition to the bargains on offer, there were several lucky draws at the fair, with cars as the top prize.

Surapong reportedly visited the fair almost every day. Even economics guru Ammar Siamwalla went along to check out some of the booths.

Aside from several hundred Otop products on offer, state-owned financial institutions, including the Government Savings Bank, the Government Housing Bank, the Small and Medium Enterprise Bank of Thailand, the Bank for Agriculture and Agricultural Cooperatives and the Islamic Bank of Thailand, had attractive promotions.

Many of the visitors expressed their wishes that this type of fair be a regular occurrence.

Meanwhile, spare a thought for the hapless people of Zimbabwe, where the inflation rate is a staggering 2.2 million per cent, prompting the government to recently launch a 100-billion-Zimbabwean-dollar (Bt179) banknote. Compared with that country, Thailand can indeed still be regarded as heaven.