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ndonesia'€™s central bank (Bank Indonesia) and the Finance Ministry are seeking ways to curb the outflow of foreign funds that hit the local stock exchange in the past several days.

Finance Minister Bambang Brodjonegoro said Wednesday that the government must be able to find solutions to maintain investors'€™ confidence and lessen the selling spree.

'€œWe won'€™t be able to directly intervene [in the stock market], but we can create confidence so that investors don'€™t get too jittery,'€ he told reporters following a coordinating meeting, which was attended by Coordinating Economic Minister Darmin Nasution, Coordinating Maritime Affairs Minister Rizal Ramli and Bank Indonesia governor Agus Martowardojo.

When the Indonesia Stock Exchange (IDX) began trading this week on Tuesday after a long-weekend holiday, it posted Rp 513.8 billion (US$37.17 million) in net sells that brought the year-to-date net sell figure to Rp 597.3 billion.

The selling spree continued on Wednesday, during which another Rp 438.5 billion-worth of foreign funds left the stock market. By the end of the day, the year-to-date net sell had amounted to Rp 1.03 trillion. On Thursday, the Jakarta Composite Index (JCI) fell further by nearly 1 percent to end the day at 4,441.

Bambang, however, said that the opposite was happening in the bonds market and that it was still attracting enough investors'€™ interest.

Latest data from the Finance Ministry'€™s financing and risk management office (DJPPR) show that foreign ownership of government bonds, which are traded in secondary markets, has been relatively stable.

Foreign investors maintained around 38.8 percent ownership, equal to Rp 534.46 trillion, of the bonds as of Tuesday. Compared to early August, the figure had slightly increased by 0.3 percent.

Bambang said that higher disbursement of government spending in the second half would hopefully help keep investors'€™ confidence in the country.

Government spending, as reported before, had only reached 33.1 percent of the total budget in the first half and the government has numerously stated that it will push the rest of spending in the remainder of the year.

Meanwhile, the Financial Services Authority (OJK) chairman Muliaman D. Hadad said that it would analyze the stock market situation within the next one or two days before taking a decision whether to implement relaxation on the stock buyback scheme.

The relaxation was put temporarily in place in 2013, allowing publicly listed companies to purchase their own shares amid bearish market conditions, without having to seek approval from their shareholders.

'€œThe terms and conditions remain the same, including a 15 percent drop in the JCI for three consecutive days. However, we may decide to implement the relaxation based on our own consideration. We'€™ll see, but the scheme is on standby,'€ he said.

Separately, PermataBank economist Josua Pardede attributed the latest string of outflows to the decline in foreign exchange reserves, which fell to $107.6 billion in July from $108 billion in June.

'€œThe authorities must be able to convince domestic investors to keep their shares and not follow in the footsteps of foreign peers,'€ he said, adding that prompt completion of the financial system stability net law (JPSK) would provide assurance of economic stability as well to investors.