COMMITTEE FOR DIVISION OF FORMER YUGOSLAV PROPERTY TO CONVENE IN SKOPJE WEDNESDAY

ZAGREB, April 1 (Hina) - A session of the committee for the division of financial assets and debts of the former Yugoslavia (SFRY) will take place in Skopje on Wednesday. The chief subjects of talks will be clearing debts and the American announcement to unfreeze the former SFRY funds. #L# Croatia's representative in the committee, Zdravko Rogic, told Hina that participants in the meeting should discuss the United States' announced plans to unfreeze the former SFRY funds in American commercial banks. The sum is 225 million dollars of clear deposits by the former Yugoslav central bank, Rogic said. He added that Croatia would most probably contest the unfreezing of funds because the Croatian parliament still had not ratified a framework agreement on succession signed in Vienna in June 2001. Croatia is the only successor of the former Yugoslavia which has not ratified the agreement because the SFRY deposits decreased after the signing of the agreement. The agreement stipulates that the deposits will amount to 645 million dollars. Three months later, Belgrade issued a statement saying that the foreign exchange reserves of the former country deposited abroad were only 56 million dollars, while a report on how the funds had been spent had not been submitted. The framework agreement envisages that property be divided according to the key of the International Monetary Fund, by which Serbia and Montenegro would receive 38 percent, Croatia 23 percent, Slovenia 16%, Bosnia 15.5% and Macedonia 7.5 percent. Rogic said that the Skopje meeting would also focus on the clearing debts of some countries towards the former Yugoslavia. The biggest task was completed with the settling of the clearing debt of the former Soviet Union which Russia took over. An agreement on regulating clearing debts of other countries should not be that complicated, said Rogic. (hina) lml sb