Hungary is 'open' to writing off most of cash-strapped North Korea's communist- era debt, a spokesman for the finance ministry said Thursday. 'Hungary is open to an agreement with North Korea. At the moment, it seems they may repay 10 percent of their debt in cash, while the rest will be written off,' spokesman Mark Koszegi told selfnews, confirming a Financial Times report. According to the FT, North Korean negotiators asked Hungary back in November 2008 to write-off more than 90 percent of its outstanding debt. 'They asked (us) to take good consideration of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea's current economic difficulties and asked for cancellation of over 90 percent of the total debt amount,' the newspaper quoted the ministry as saying. The paper put the total amount owed by Pyongyang to Hungary at 29.6 million clearing roubles, an accounting unit used in the former Soviet Bloc. Koszegi also put the amount at around 30 million roubles. Nevertheless, the conversion rate and the exact size of the cancellation would still have to negotiated, he said. Earlier this month, the Czech Republic said it too was considering forgiving part of North Korea's debt And Czech deputy finance minister Tomas Zidek told selfnews that the debt could be paid for in exchange for ginseng, known as a health tonic and male aphrodisiac, even if that was an official offer from Pyongyang. The Czech daily Dnes recently wrote that North Korea had proposed to ship the exotic root to pay five percent of the 186 million koruna (7.5 million euros, 9.7 million dollars) debt from past supplies of Czech trams and machines. But it said the sum corresponded to about 20 tonnes of ginseng, while Czechs annually consume just 1.4 tonnes of ginseng believed to combat lethargy, arthritis, impotence and senility among other conditions. In Budapest, finance ministry spokesman Koszegi told selfnews that ginseng 'was not mentioned during the negotiations between Hungary and North Korea.' North Korea appears to be struggling to meet its financial obligations, not least as a result of international trade sanctions imposed over its nuclear weapons programme. 