Nov 18 (Reuters) - Indonesia's central bank talked down the likelihood of immediate curbs on foreign ownership of short-term debt on Wednesday, one day after its deputy governor said it may implement limits on foreign investments in a move to combat the threat of speculative 'hot money' flows. [ID:nJAK502158]
Policy makers in Taiwan, Brazil and Peru have acted to curb 'hot money' speculative flows they fear may create asset price bubbles and boost their currencies to uncompetitive levels, while officials in China, Hong Kong and Thailand have also spoken out on the issue in recent months.
Here is an overview tracing some key policymakers' and officials' comments and actions related to 'hot money' this year.
Feb 5, 2009: Ten months after Peru's Central Bank President Julio Verlarde becomes one of the first to squeeze short-term "hot money" by boosting required reserves for bank accounts owned by foreign funds, he says the country's sol currency has solid economic underpinnings, as it hits its lowest since 2006. [ID:nN05309489]
May 5: China publishes draft regulations covering non-resident foreign exchange accounts to make it harder for speculative money to flow in and out. Under the proposed rules, Chinese and foreign banks would clearly label foreign exchange accounts opened by overseas firms. [ID:nPEK121439]
Aug 6: Hong Kong central bank chief Joseph Yam says strong fund flows into Hong Kong assets in recent months are not related to currency speculation. Yam says he does not see any signs of excessive credit creation that could lead to an asset price bubble, as the money pouring in is largely "real money". [ID:nHKG76960]
Sept 1: Capital will flow steadily into China in coming months as its economy regains steam, Liu Bin, an official with the State Administration of Foreign Exchange (SAFE) says. Adding that "hot money" is a vague term lacking in statistical meaning for SAFE, Liu says it keeps an eye on short-term capital flows to stop domestic financial upheaval. [ID:nPEK100055]
Sept 21: SAFE, China's foreign exchange regulator repeats its position; saying it will keep a close watch to prevent any big inflows or outflows of capital, to counter uncertainties caused by the still shaky global economic recovery. [ID:nPEK185472]
Oct 16: South Korea may impose controls on foreign bank liquidity to help protect the economy against capital flight, Jong-Goo Yi, a standing commissioner of the Financial Services Commission, says. A senior Finance Ministry official tells Reuters later that a task force is reviewing controls on foreign currency liquidity ratios at foreign banks but that any controls would be implemented gradually. [ID:nSEO127809]
Oct 19: Brazil unveils plans to tax capital into fixed-income investments and stocks in a bid to prevent its hard-charging currency from strengthening further. Finance Minister Guido Mantega says the government will charge a 2 percent financial transactions tax on foreign investment flows to Brazil's stock market and local fixed-income securities such as government bonds. [ID:nN19264977]
Nov 10: Taiwan's central bank bans foreign investment in time deposits, senior official Lin Sun-yuan says, to thwart currency speculation on the local currency. [ID:nTPU001847] The Financial Supervisory Commission announced the immediate ban after the central bank said in October that foreign investors have parked about $15.5 billion in Taiwan dollar accounts. [ID:nTP305449]
Nov 11: Thailand's Finance Minister Korn Chatikavanij
downplays the hot money issue, saying the country has not seen
a great deal of hot money inflow this year and the foreign
exchange rate is not a big factor in export competitiveness.
[ID:nSGN002271]
Nov 13: Head of the International Monetary Fund, Dominique
Strauss-Kahn, says hot money may threaten emerging market
stability. "While capital inflows are generally beneficial,
they can raise risks of rapid and potentially destabilizing
movements of currencies and asset prices," Strauss-Kahn said,
speaking in Singapore. [ID:nSGL002049] Nov 17: Indonesia's
central bank is looking at limiting foreign ownership of its
short-term debt paper, also known as SBI, because of concern
about the impact on the rupiah exchange rate, deputy governor
Hartadi Sarwono says. The remarks push the rupiah
Nov 18: Sarwono downplays down the immediate threat of curbs on foreign ownership of short-term debt, saying they are just one of several options the central bank is studying and that so far rupiah moves linked to money flows were manageable. [ID:nJAK502158]
Nov 18: Fan Gang, a member of the People's Bank of China's monetary policy committee, tells Reuters in an interview that capital inflows, or "hot money," into China had become a problem and warns of the risk of asset bubbles emerging.
Source: Reuters (Compiled by Gillian Murdoch; Editing by Tomasz Janowski)