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ocal financial markets remained bearish with stocks, bonds and currency markets all down on Monday as market players responded negatively to the economic stimulus package, which is regarded as lacking the short-term measures to address the current woes.

The Jakarta Composite Index (JCI) fell 49.15 points, or 1.17 percent, to 4120.66 points as the sell-off by foreign investors continued.

Meanwhile, yields for 10-year government bonds climbed seven basis points to 8.5 percent, according to prices from the Inter Dealer Market Association.

The sell-offs in both the portfolio and fixed-income markets further dragged down the rupiah, which slid 0.6 percent to 10,848 per US dollar as of 4 p.m. in Jakarta, according to prices from local banks quoted by Bloomberg.

Responding to the poor performance in the financial market, Finance Minister Chatib Basri said market players would '€œneed time'€ to digest the government'€™s new package of economic measures.

Chatib added that he recently held a conference call with more than 500 foreign investors to enlighten them about the new stimulus package, with the minister claiming the investors in attendance appreciated the move.

'€œThey have responded positively. The investors are trying to digest our new policies, but so far they see there'€™s an effort from the government to tackle the current account deficit,'€ he said on Monday.

Last week, the government announced a new stimulus package in an attempt to tackle the root problem behind the persistent weakening of the rupiah: the current account deficit, which swelled to the surprisingly high level of US$9.8 billion, or 4.4 percent of gross domestic product (GDP), in the second quarter this year.

Included in the stimulus package were additional tax reductions for labor-intensive sectors that export a minimum 30 percent of their total production, and removing export quotas for minerals to boost exports, as well as increasing the mandatory concentrate of biodiesel used in diesel to reduce oil imports.

'€œInvestors have been left puzzled because the government has not provided crucial elaboration on points in the stimulus, such as deficit-control mechanisms,'€ said Satrio Utomo, an analyst with Universal Broker Indonesia.

 The confusion over the finer details of the government stimulus had thus negated positive signs from regional markets, as well as '€œappropriate steps'€ taken by the central bank and the Financial Services Authority (OJK), he added.

Other analysts also criticized the stimulus package, claiming its impact would only be felt in the longer-term and that what the country desperately needed at the moment was short-term measures to attract foreign inflows to bolster the ailing rupiah.

'€œThe measures rolled out by the government and [Bank Indonesia] BI last week were a step in the right direction, but will only start to have an impact in the medium term,'€ Su Sian Lim, a regional economist with HSBC Bank in Singapore, wrote in an email interview on Monday.

'€œFurthermore, there is still insufficient information regarding when these measures will actually be implemented,'€ she added.

The biggest responsibility for bolstering the weak rupiah should fall with the central bank, given the fact that monetary policies would have more immediate impact on the financial sector rather than fiscal policies, economists have said.

'€œ[Bank] Indonesia is sending signals that growth is the priority and is reluctant to hike interest rates to control the currency,'€ Sean Yokota, a Singapore-based analyst with Swedish bank SEB, told The Jakarta Post on Monday.

'€œAs long as that is the strategy, it will be difficult for Indonesia'€™s rupiah to get stronger.'€