HONG KONG: Companies in Asia are set to offer bigger pay rises next year as the region continues to rebound from global recession, notably in India where base salary levels are poised to jump nearly 10 per cent, a survey showed on Wednesday.

Salaries in Indonesia and China will also surge, by 8.7 per cent and 6.7 per cent respectively, whereas workers in Japan can expect a paltry 2.1 per cent pay rise, according to the survey by Hewitt Associates, a provider of multi-service HR business process outsourcing. The survey covered more than 2,000 local and joint-venture companies in the Asia-Pacific region.

Salaries -- or annual guaranteed pay -- this year in Asia's fast-growing economic powerhouses China and India, at 4.5 per cent and 6.3 per cent respectively, were the lowest since 2005, Hewitt said.

Salaries barely grew at all in Hong Kong and Japan, this year as companies cut staff. More than 60 per cent of companies surveyed in Hong Kong, Japan and Singapore froze wage levels, compared with only 26.1 per cent in India and 30.8 per cent in China.

Next year, only 6 per cent of companies in India and 8.3 per cent in China expect to freeze pay compared with 12-14 per cent of companies in Japan, Singapore, Hong Kong and Australia.