Harare  - Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe's party "unanimously endorsed" this week's historic power-sharing agreement at meetings over the past two days, a spokesman said, quelling fears the party was about to back-track on the agreement.

"At the meetings (of the leadership of Mugabe's Zanu-PF) it was agreed that the document signed had the interests of the party at heart and it was unanimously endorsed. So the president will meet the other principals on Thursday and finalize the issue of allocating the ministries," Zanu-PF chief negotiator Patrick Chinamasa told Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa.

Chinamasa also confirmed Thursday's meeting between Mugabe, Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) leader Morgan Tsvangirai and Arthur Mutambara, leader of an MDC splinter faction, on national television.

The meeting to finalize the distribution of posts in a new 31- member cabinet had been due to take place Tuesday.

But Mugabe instead reverted to his party's politburo and central committee amid signs some party hardliners were finding the prospect of giving up key ministries to the MDC a hard pill to swallow.

On Monday, the world watched as Zimbabwe's leaders committed themselves to sharing power in a transitional government, as part of a regionally brokered initiative to end a decade of worsening repression and hardship under 84-year-old Mugabe.

The deal made Mugabe executive president and head of state with reduced powers, while Tsvangirai becomes prime minister and effective head of government. Zanu-PF gets 15 ministries, Tsvangirai's MDC gets 13 and the remaining three go to Mutambara's faction.

Sources say that the MDC is prepared to let Mugabe retain the defence ministry, which controls the army while insisting it take home affairs, giving Tsvangirai control over the police. Both the army and police have been used in past crackdowns on the MDC.

The agreement is seen as the last hope to pull the country back from the brink of collapse.

Inflation is put officially at 11.2 per cent but is estimated at several times that and the Zimbabwe dollar is worth only one thirty- thousandth of a US dollar, despite the Reserve Bank slashing 10 zeroes off the currency less than two months ago.

The Bank introduced a new 1,000 dollar note (10 trillion dollars in old money) Wednesday in a bid to end cash shortages but the new note can only buy a loaf of bread.

"The zeros seem to be coming back no matter how often they slash them," said John Robertson, an economic consultant. "What we need in Zimbabwe is a clear change of policies. Start production and then inflation will start easing up." (dpa)