SUCCESSORS TO FORMER YUGOSLAVIA SEEK FOREIGN EXCHANGE DEPOSITS

ZAGREB, Feb 26 (Hina) - Representatives of the five countries- successors to the former Yugoslavia, who attended Tuesday's meeting in Zagreb of a committee on the distribution of assets and liabilities of the former Yugoslavia, have again requested information from the National Bank of Yugoslavia (NBJ) and eight mixed banks as to how the former NBJ assets deposited in the mixed banks had decreased from 645 million to 56 million dollars. "If this information is not provided, the problem will not be solved just at the level of this committee, but will be raised to a higher political level," Croatia's Zdravko Rogic told a news conference. The next meeting is scheduled for mid-March in Skopje. The agreement on succession issues, signed at the end of last June, includes the amounts of remaining foreign exchange reserves, which should be divided among the successor states. There are four categories of assets valued at more than a billion dollars in total, for example the funds of the former NBJ at foreign commercial banks, deposits of the former central bank with mixed banks (foreign banks, but owned or co-owned also by banks from the former Yugoslavia). However, the issue of the former NBJ's assets in the mixed banks came up as a problem at previous two committee meetings. Rogic explained that the agreement lists the amount of 645 million dollars of deposits of the former NBJ at mixed banks, while NBJ representatives at a meeting in Belgrade claimed this was an accounting amount, and the real amount was 56 million dollars. The difference is 589 million dollars, which is an enormous departure from the agreement on succession, Rogic said, adding that the ratification of the agreement in Croatia and Slovenia was stopped because of this. At the very first committee meeting, the representatives asked for NBJ and mixed banks' information about how the funds were used and who gave the order for them to be spent, since they were frozen due to sanctions imposed on Yugoslavia, and could have been unfrozen for humanitarian purposes. The NBJ did not provide a complete report, and of the total of eight banks, only two replied, saying the NBJ had the requested information and that they needed its permission to give the information, Rogic said. He also informed reporters that additional information was requested from the NBJ and the banks at today's meeting as well. Yugoslavia's authorised representative on the committee, Veroljub Dugalic, tried to explain several times that Yugoslav representatives had earlier said the amount of 645 million dollars was an accounting amount and that they did not have exact information as well as that it was also in their interest to establish the factual situation. Dugalic requested that the former NBJ should be differentiated from the current Yugoslav central bank which, he claimed, "did not have insight into the funds, nor could spend them". Representatives of other successor countries disagreed. The orders for the resources to be spent could only have been given by the owner, meaning the NBJ, Rogic said, adding that the NBJ existed, whether it be of the former or present Yugoslavia. The Slovene representative, France Arhar, said there was no doubt that mixed banks too did business on their own, but it was known where orders came from -- the NBJ. He also noted that the final balance of accounts of the former NBJ was not known to this day, nor was the starting balance of the new NBJ. The mixed banks in which the NBJ deposited the funds are Adria Bank from Vienna, AY Bank from London, Banque Franco-Yougoslave from Paris, Beogradska Bank in Nicosia, the Beogradska Bank office in New York, the Jugobanka office in New York, LBS Bank from New York, and LHB from Frankfurt. (hina) lml sb