After a terrible 1998, spending in Asia excluding Japan jumped 15 per cent to $24 billion, estimates market research firm ACNielsen Media International. That's good news for the region, where some countries are still woozy from the crash in 1997. Advertisers spent more last year than they did before the crash, except in Taiwan, where an earthquake damped spending, and South Korea and Malaysia, both hard hit by the economic crisis.

``These numbers,'' said Frank D Martell, ACNielsen's regional chief operating office, ``are a leading indicator for recovery.''

The firm doesn't measure spending in Japan, where Dentsu Inc, the world's largest advertising agency, dominates the media-research market. Dentsu recently estimated that advertising spending slipped for the second straight year, by more than 1 per cent to $54 billion, as the Japanese economy languishes. China, which surpassed South Korea in 1998 to become Asia's second largest advertising market, grew 15 per cent last year to an estimated $6.1 billion. These numbers are probably not exact because ACNielsen merely tallies ads and multiplies them by the newspapers' or television stations' published advertising rates. And at some Chinese television stations these days, discount rates for commercial time can be lower by as much as a third from published rates, according to companies that specialize in buying commercial time for advertisers. Fast-growing China wasn't hit as hard by the 1997 crash, although its economy has been slowing lately too. Many foreign consumer-goods companies are advertising less in China,say advertising agencies, while Chinese companies pick up the slack.

``It's not so much that the multinational corporations have disappeared,'' said Andre Nair, managing director for Hong Kong and China of Starcom Worldwide, a unit of US advertising agency Leo Burnett, which plans ad campaigns and buys advertising time for clients. ``But new local advertisers are coming in and the old ones are spending more.'' Stereo and TV retailers used to be the biggest advertisers in China, but no more. Companies selling traditional Chinese health remedies like anti-aging tonic Tai-Tai (a word that means ``wife'' in Chinese), were the biggest advertisers last year for the first time, jumping an estimated 174 per cent. Half of the 20 biggest advertisers, in fact, were health-tonics retailers. Ad spending in the real-estate sector rose 44.5 per cent as the Chinese become more affluent and the government provides less public housing.

Advertising spending in South Korea rose 33 per cent (after a 25 per cent tumble he year before) to $4.2 billion as its brawny economy pumped up. Spending in Hong Kong and Australia, the next two biggest markets, also rose, Australia by 4 per cent to $3.1 billion and Hong Kong by 14 per cent to $3 billion. Taiwan fell 26 per cent to $1.9 billion, following a 12 per cent decline in 1998 from 1997.

Across the region, as usual, retailers spent the most on advertising at an estimated $1.3 billion, up 11 per cent. Even makers of luxury goods like jewelry spent more, said Alex Abplanalp, regional director at Carat Asia-Pacific, the local media-buying unit of Britain's Aegis Group. ``The categories that were hardest hit in the crash were of course things that people don't need every day, like luxury goods, autos and property,'' he said. ``Now they're coming back.'' Abplanalp said, among the company's clients, U.K. clothes maker Alfred Dunhill for example increased its spending in Asia last year. Car dealers increased their ad spending by 1 per cent to $577 million. Spending of entertainment companies like movie theaters rose 8 per cent to $519 million. Food companies' spending rose 4 per cent to $400 million.

Not high on the list, but coming on fast, were ``dot. com'' companies like Internet portals, which are trying to drum up visitors in the old-fashioned media of newspapers and TV. ``That really started in the fourth quarter,'' said Matthew Dodds, regional director of client service for US ad agency FCB Worldwide. ``But almost everyone seems much healthier these days.''

Advertising and consumer spending are expected to rise again this year by about the same 15 per cent, said Steve Gatfield, regional managing director for Leo Burnett. ``I don't see a rampant upswing or boundless spending,'' he said. Instead, traditional advertisers like manufacturers of packaged goods will remain steady while the big spenders will be Internet companies trying to bring in more customers. Financial services, whose spending fell 2 per cent last year, will likely rebound, Mr. Gatfield said, and spending by telecom companies like mobilephone service companies is expected to jump.