* Rupiah falls as c.bank eyes limits on foreign SBI ownership
* Central bank worried about hot money
* Curbs on SBI could shift funds to longer-dated debt
By Gde Anugrah Arka
JAKARTA, Nov 18 (Reuters) - Indonesia's central bank on Wednesday played down the immediate threat of curbs on foreign investment in short-term debt after its earlier mention of controls hit the rupiah currency.
Deputy governor Hartadi Sarwono said late on Tuesday the central bank was considering such controls to curb hot money flows, steps already taken by Brazil and Taiwan recently. The remarks pushed the rupiah down about half a percent against the dollar in early Wednesday trade.
The rupiah later trimmed losses after Sarwono told Reuters that possible curbs on foreign holdings of short-term SBI debt were just one of the options the central bank was studying and that so far currency moves linked to money flows were manageable.
"As a precautionary measure, of course BI (Bank Indonesia) is studying the possibility of limiting foreign ownership in SBIs, but it doesn't necessarily mean that we will implement it," Sarwono said by mobile phone text message.
Taiwan earlier this month banned foreign funds from investing in time deposits in what appeared to be aimed at deterring currency speculation, while Brazil last month brought in a tax on capital inflows.
Those moves coincide with a wider debate over whether the weakness of the U.S. dollar and the U.S. Federal Reserve's easy money policy is helping to fuel fresh asset bubbles as investors seek higher-yielding assets, particularly in emerging markets.
Foreign investor interest in Indonesia has soared this year thanks to a combination of political stability, economic growth, falling inflation, lower interest rates, plus an increasing awareness that Southeast Asia's biggest economy could achieve investment grade within a couple of years and join the ranks of the BRIC economies Brazil, Russia, India and China.
The rupiah, Asia's best performing currency, is up about 17 percent against the dollar this year while stocks, up 80 percent, are also among the regions' top performers.
HOT MONEY HEADACHE
The strengthening rupiah has helped Indonesia, which has long suffered from high structural costs, to curb inflation.
But at the same time, inflows of hot money are a headache for Bank Indonesia, leading to volatility in the currency and market rates and the need to sterilise capital flows, which causes losses.
Foreign investors are also quick to pull out funds at the first sign of trouble. That happened a year ago, when the global financial crisis spread to emerging markets and foreigners sold Indonesian assets. And few Indonesians have forgotten the catastrophic financial meltdown in 1997-98, which sparked riots and political chaos with the ouster of former President Suharto.
Some analysts said the central bank seemed keen to shift flows from short-term central bank debt, which is very liquid, to less liquid longer government debt, particularly given that net government borrowing is forecast to climb to 104.4 trillion rupiah ($11.07 billion) in 2010 from 102.1 trillion this year.
Robert Prior-Wandesforde, economist at HSBC in Singapore, said the authorities faced a delicate balancing act.
"Obviously they are worried about the big inflows of capital and the potential for even more rapid outflows as it can reverse more quickly," he said. "The danger is the message it sends, and if you send the wrong message to foreign investors it takes a long time to win back confidence."
ARBITRAGE OPPORTUNITIES
The authorities seem worried about the billions of dollars being parked in SBIs to exploit the yield differences.
For instance, a foreigner with access to funds at LIBOR can earn up to 350 basis points by buying one-month SBIs yielding nearly 6.5 percent and using the non-deliverable forward market to swap dollars into rupiah.
"These flows are pretty big," said a trader in Singapore. "There might be some shift from these flows to long end, but not a lot."
As of Nov. 13, foreigners held around 47 trillion rupiah ($5.01 billion) worth of SBIs, or about a fifth of the total of 240 trillion rupiah, a central bank source said.
That compares with foreign exchange reserves of $64.5 billion at the end of October.
Foreign inflows boosted Indonesia's capital account, which swung to a $3 billion surplus in the third quarter from a deficit of $2.2 billion in the second quarter.
Analysts warn that curbing short-term flows while maintaining investor appetite for other assets may prove a tall order. "Foreign SBI flows may be the key determinant of short-term IDR (Indonesian rupiah) volatility, but as soon as the words 'limit' or 'control' fall into the same sentence as currency in a high yield market like Indonesia, it tends to worry investors," said James Bryson, a Jakarta-based fund manager at HB Capital. ($1=9,430 Rupiah) (Additional reporting by Ed Davies, Andreas Ismar and Vidya Ranganathan in Singapore; Writing by Sara Webb; Editing by Tomasz Janowski) (ga.arka@thomsonreuters.com; Reuters Messaging: ga.arka.reuters.com@reuters.net; +62 21 384 6364 ext 911))