Zimbabwe's President Robert Mugabe on Sunday stressed black Zimbabweans' ownership of the country's mineral resources in his last rally before heading to the polls next Wednesday in a bid to extend his 33-year rule.

Mugabe, 89, told thousands of supporters filling a huge stadium in Harare that he will make sure indigenous Zimbabweans take control of the resources of the land even when they need to partner with foreign companies for the much-needed mining capital.

"The mine resources are ours and are more meaningful than the capital they (foreigners) bring in," Mugabe said. "The money is part of the instruments put together to enable them to exploit our resources. But the products remain our products."

Zimbabwe, with significant reserves of diamond, gold, chrome, and platinum, is recovering from a decade-old economic stagnation on the back of the booming mining sector. Since 2007, the government has been pushing for an "indigenization" drive which requires foreign businesses, especially those in mining, to cede 51 percent of the shares to their local partners.

In his manifesto unveiled earlier this month, Mugabe says his Zanu-PF party's policy is to empower indigenous entities to hold 100 percent of equity to start up or takeover strategic enterprises across the economy, especially in key sectors such as mining, tourism and agriculture.

The next Zanu-PF government would put in place robust measures to ensure an even more transparent, accountable, tangible and measurable implementation matrix in the national interest, according to the manifesto.

"We would now want companies to be formed by our own people so we don't have to quarrel with outsiders all the time," Mugabe said at Sunday's rally. "Our own people are educated sufficiently to form companies to undertake mining jobs like engineers and geologists."

The president said what is left is for locals to change the mindset that they are not inferior to outsiders.

Mugabe led the liberation struggle to Zimbabwe's independence in 1980 and won all presidential elections since 1987. His major rival in the upcoming polls -- Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai -- lost twice to Mugabe in 2002 and 2008 polls.

Despite his advance age, Mugabe kept his campaign schedule busy, attending 10 rallies in two weeks' time and delivering hours-long speeches in each of the occasions. Endi

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