Regional magazines and newspapers say that given the current situation, the worst case scenario is for 2002 to turn in a flat performance, underlining a cautious first half and followed by a buoyant second half.
said Randy Weddle, Asia-Pacific managing director of the International Herald Tribune.
Any negative surprises, however, will put a dent in the recovery process.
"We don't know if there will be some type of retaliation against the American-led military action in Afghanistan. We don't know for sure what will happen in Japan because if just a few banks go under, it will be a frightening thing,
Weddle added.
However, the tentative beginning to the new year, appears to be ahead of expectation.
Forbes Global, which was one of the few titles to beat the downturn with a 10 per cent year-on-year adspend jump, said that it had detected increased market activity in recent weeks. Vice-president and managing director, Asia, William Adamopoulos, said: "For the market in general, the last few months of last year was very quiet.
"From about mid-January, things started to pick up, we're seeing more activity, more requests for proposals. I am cautiously optimistic that this will be a decent year for the market compared with last year."
The Economist regional advertising manager, Tim Pinnegar, said the market sentiment was more positive, but added that a number of companies have been out of the game for too long.
"Some companies have stopped advertising since last April and May. Others have stopped since last September.
"However, the reality is that they cannot stay out for too long otherwise they will lose out to their competitors which have decided to return to the brand building path."
However, Pinnegar said that the situation had yet to return to normal.
"Advertisers are pushing to book space in the first quarter, but a number have adopted a wait-and-see stance for full-year bookings."
The biggest challenges that has to be overcome is that the level of global uncertainty has never been greater. But, there is an upside to the current state of affairs.
Said Weddle: "The uncertainty is fuelling newspaper sales because people realise that they need to stay on top of things around the world in order to be able to cope with what's happening in their 25-mile radius. It's all interconnected."
