FINANCE Minister Tendai Biti has described Zimbabwe’s financial position as “still very trying" adding diamond sales this year will not ease pressure on the country’s budget.

Biti said foreign assistance to rebuild the country's economy remains low, leaving the government no room to spend more on new projects.

"It will remain a cash budget because we have no money for anything else," he said.

"Diamonds have proved they're not Zimbabwe's El Dorado, raising only $56 million. We are not printing money and the situation remains very, very trying."

Zimbabwe appealed for help to recover from a decade-long recession after the Movement for Democratic Change formed a power-sharing government with President Robert Mugabe's Zanu PF party in February last year.

With Mugabe still in power, the accord has failed to allay investor and foreign government concerns.

International help is "far less than we hoped," Biti said.

Since 2009, the government has been spending "only what it earns and eating only what it kills" to avoid taking on debt, he said.

The government has started talking to businesses and industries about next year's budget, to be presented in December, Biti said.

He added that the government's share of money earned from diamond sales will contribute to the annual budget.

The Kimberley Process, which monitors sales of so-called conflict diamonds, allowed the country to sell 900 000 carats of gems from the area on August 11.

Zimbabwe's military and police have been criticised for human-rights abuses in the Marange diamond fields located in the country’s eastern Manicaland province.