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Jakarta. Indonesia’s former finance minister, Sri Mulyani Indrawati, now a managing director at the World Bank, says Asian economies may need to consider capital controls as quantitative easing by the United States could lead to asset bubbles in the region’s financial markets, Bloomberg has reported.

In an interview with the news agency in Kuala Lumpur on Tuesday, Sri Mulyani said any curbs should be “targeted,” temporary and tailored to address specific problems.

Possible moves, she said, could include tying up funds for as long as a year to ease the risk of hot money flying out of the countries.

The advice comes after the US Federal Reserve announced it would try to boost the US economy with plans to buy $600 billion in long-term Treasury bonds as a part of efforts known as quantitative easing.

The plan is hoped to keep the fragile US recovery moving and reduce unemployment.

“Certain assets will become — potentially — bubbles,” Sri Mulyani said. “The quantitative easing will create a lot of liquidity flooding to the East Asia-Pacific region, because it is the most dynamic and attractive with a higher return on investment.”

Sri Mulyani, who is also a former director of the International Monetary Fund, said real estate prices were of particular concern in some Asian countries, including in China, Australia and parts of Southeast Asia.

Meanwhile, Japan, Thailand and Malaysia had this year seen an increase of more than 10 percent in their currencies against the dollar, she said, and some regional stock markets had gained more than 50 percent.

According to Bloomberg data, Sri Lanka’s benchmark stock index is up more than 90 percent this year, while indexes for Thailand and Indonesia have exceeded 40 percent.

“In 1997-98, the words ‘capital controls’ were forbidden and stigmatized,” said Sri Mulyani, who joined the World Bank in June to oversee Asia Pacific and Latin America.

“Now the problem of capital is so systemic and huge globally, it has become universally acceptable to have certain types of temporary capital controls.”

She said that a more “narrow, targeted and less permanent sort of control” would be best, adding that policy measures should also be considered to help turn capital inflows into more productive long-term foreign investment.

Nations from Brazil to South Korea and Thailand have been trying to restrain their currencies and protect exporters as investors seek higher-yielding emerging market assets amid near-zero borrowing costs in the United States.

The head of the IMF, Dominique Strauss-Kahn, last month said capital flooding into Asia could lead to asset bubbles and financial instability.

Cui Tiankai, China’s vice foreign minister, meanwhile, told Bloomberg the decision to pump liquidity into the US economy would hurt global confidence.