The asymptotic behavior, as $n\rightarrow \infty $ of the conditional distribution of the number of particles in a decomposable critical branching process $\mathbf{Z}% (m)=(Z_{1}(m),...,Z_{N}(m)),$ with $N$ types of particles at moment $m=n-k,\, k=o(n),$ is investigated given that the extinction moment of the process is $n$.