Rendi A. Witular, Jakarta – Finance Minister Agus Martowardojo said on Thursday that the potential outflow of foreign assets was among the fiscal and monetary concerns authorities needed to anticipate this year.

Agus said that a massive outflow of foreign funds in September had cost Indonesia dearly as investors jumped on the bandwagon of dumping government bonds.

"The incident caused our balance of payments to turn negative in the third quarter of last year," said Agus. "Such incidents need to be carefully monitored this year in order to avoid the country falling into financial crisis," he said.

According to Agus, the September incident was a consequence of the financial mayhem plaguing Europe. Due to the incident, he said, Indonesia's foreign exchange reserves plunged by more than 10 percent to Rp 124 trillion (US$12.7 billion) from Rp 110 trillion during the third quarter of last year.