At the Extraordinary General Meeting of the Bank for International Settlements on June 11, 2001 a decision was reached to cancel the shares of the former Yugoslavia in the capital of the BIS and to issue an equivalent number of new shares which are to be divided among the central banks of the five successor states to the former SFRY: the Bank of Slovenia, the Central bank of Bosnia and Herzegovina, the National bank of the Republic of Macedonia, the National Bank of Yugoslavia and the Croatian National Bank. The BIS shares issued provisionally to four of the aforementioned central banks in 1997 were also cancelled by the decision of the Extraordinary General Meeting.

The new BIS shares will be divided pursuant to the agreement made among successor states, that is, among their central banks, in April and May this year. According to this agreement, Croatia is entitled to a 28.49 percent share of the assets of the former SFRY in BIS. Thus, of the total amount of shares and dividend (about USD 50 million), Croatia will receive about USD 11 million in shares and USD 3 million in dividend.

The division of the shares in BIS among successor states to the former SFRY is the final step in the division of total assets of the former Yugoslavia in this international financial institution. The assets of the former SFRY in BIS also comprise gold and foreign currency amounting to approximately USD 414 million, of which Croatia is entitled to about USD 118 million.

Since central banks, as BIS members, are in charge of cooperating with this institution, the aforementioned USD 118 million will be added to the international reserves of the Republic of Croatia. It will be possible to use the added amount as a deposit for possible loans earmarked for monetary interventions deemed necessary by the Croatian National Bank.