Latest news with #Nagy
Yahoo
a day ago
- Business
- Yahoo
North Carolina farmers' drones impacted by tariffs
(WGHP) — The back-and-forth over tariffs between the US and China is creating tension for a variety of businesses. It's also impacting a key and growing technology that helps to put food on your table. That technology is a roughly 50-pound agricultural drone. 'Farmers are amazingly efficient. They're trying to figure out, 'How can I be more productive. How can I create more product to sell?'' NC Cooperative Extension Director for Caldwell County Seth Nagy said. Nagy teaches and helps other farmers use agricultural drones for everything from seeding to spraying herbicides and pesticides to getting a birds-eye view of every corner of a field, sometimes hundreds of acres wide. 'A lot of farmers have problems getting into fields when it's wet, and a lot of our chemicals on the crops, especially fungicide on beans and corn. It's time sensitive, so they need to do it when the time is right,' owner and CEO of Ag Drone Works Jim Adams said. Those drones are also agile, getting into steep pastures and hard-to-reach places and navigating tight corners with telephone lines and cell towers. But there's a problem. 'What really disturbs me more than anything else is the fact that we're not self-sufficient,' Adams said. The drones themselves and their parts are made almost entirely in China. Adams' company sells and helps farmers use the drones that he procures from Chinese companies. Tariff uncertainty makes his job harder. 'The price basically has doubled in the last 90 days. The lead time … doubled, too. More than doubled,' Adams said. Now, it takes two months to get a drone in. The supply chain at popular companies like DJI seems to Adams like they've come to a screeching halt. 'We're just not able to get product to furnish the farmers in what they need,' Adams said. Experts say that in the US, we have the knowledge to build them, but we need the capital investment. With almost 50 registered spray drones in North Carolina and growing, the tech is attracting a new generation of those innovative farmers that Nagy said are essential. 'I think we're able to bring some younger kids inm and I think some really neat value-added stuff,' Nagy said. And Adams says we need to figure things out fast. 'The general public needs to be aware that if we can use this technology effectively and efficiently, it will really help in curbing food prices,' Adams said. 'If not, we're going to continue to see a spiral upward.' Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Egypt Independent
24-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Egypt Independent
Qasr el-Nil theater set to host ‘Sound and Image' Umm Kulthum show on Thursday
The 'Sound and Image' music show is preparing to present its first night in Cairo, following its huge success during the Riyadh Season in Saudi Arabia. Taking take place on Thursday at the iconic stage of the Qasr el-Nil Cinema, massive preparations are underway to transform the theater into a 'time machine' back to the golden age of Arabic music. The show will embody the life and career of the Star of the East, Umm Kulthum, through a live performance by Marwa Nagy, who will perform a selection of Umm Kulthum's timeless songs. This blends powerful vocals with dramatic narration and visual effects, bringing the spirit of the popular singer back to life on stage. The show is written by Mohamed Zaki and directed by Mostafa Abdel-Salam, with Marwa Nagy co-presenting the show with a group of artists. In statements reported by the Egyptian newspaper al-Shorouk, Zaki said that the reason the show was called 'Sound and Image' is because it combines live singing and acting. He explained that the audience will see Nagy transform into Umm Kulthum through makeup and costume work, as if the audience were experiencing a night with the Star of the East and her band, but with Nagy's voice and performance. Nagy said, 'The show is not just a tribute to the icon of Arab singing, but rather a visual musical experience that blends voice, story, and amazement, recounting the details of her artistic journey.' The audience will witness an unprecedented performance that evokes the fragrance of the past and recreates the features of that beautiful era, she said. Nagy, as Umm Kulthum, will perform a new song, composed specifically for the show on the same stage where Kalthum last performed in 1973: the venerable Qasr el-Nil Theater. Edited translation from Al-Masry Al-Youm
Budapest Times
22-05-2025
- Business
- Budapest Times
Nagy: Government's 2026 ‘anti-war budget' puts families first
Márton Nagy, National Economy Minister, called the government's 2026 budget bill an 'anti-war budget' at the start of debate of the draft legislation in parliament on Wednesday. Minister Nagy said the 2026 budget aimed to mitigate the negative effects of the war in Ukraine and focused on support for families raising children, young Hungarians and pensioners. The budget seeks to ensure the security of every Hungarian family, while allowing all Hungarians to 'take a step forward', he added. He said the budget also provided guarantees for the continuation of Hungary's work-based society. Hungary's government will roll out Europe's biggest family tax cut programme in 2026, while maintaining the regulated utilities price scheme for households, ensuring pensioners get their annual bonus, protecting workplaces and creating new jobs, he said. He noted that the 2026 budget bill assumed 4.1pc GDP growth and 3.6pc average annual inflation. The deficit target is 3.7pc of GDP.
Budapest Times
14-05-2025
- Business
- Budapest Times
Nagy: Hungary's government will keep fiscal stability a priority in 2025 and 2026
Márton Nagy, National Economy Minister, told MTI that Hungary's government will keep fiscal stability a 'priority' in 2025 and 2026, even as it undertakes the biggest tax cut program in Europe. Following an ECOFIN meeting in Brussels, Minister Nagy highlighted the rollout of personal income tax exemptions for mothers of two and three children, the doubling of tax allowances for families raising children and VAT rebates for pensioners. The minister said that the government had already decided on those measures and wouldn't make any compromises. 'We will channel those resources to Hungarian families and pensioners, not to Ukraine,' he added. He pointed to the challenge posed to all countries in Europe by the decline in competitiveness of the European Union and Germany, the need to boost defense spending and the global trade war. He noted that 16 member states, Hungary included, had requested the activation of an escape clause that would allow for greater fiscal manoeuvre when it came to defense spending. Minister Nagy acknowledged that the general government deficit had reached 71pc of the full-year target in January-April, as in earlier years. He said expenditures had climbed on interest payments for retail government securities and an annual pensioners' bonus. Budget revenue rose in line with expectations, supported by increasing consumption, even as GDP underperformed expectations, he added. Minister Nagy noted that the government had earlier modified the full-year general government deficit target to 4.1pc of GDP. The government is actively analysing budget trends and will make corrections on the expenditure side, if necessary, he said. The 'basic rule', he added, was for the general government to break even, excluding debt maintenance costs. The government will bring down interest expenditures, reducing the deficit and state debt levels in the coming years, he said.
Budapest Times
08-05-2025
- Business
- Budapest Times
Minister Nagy submits government's 2026 budget bill to parliament
Minister Nagy said that the most important question for 2026 was whether "Hungarian money would go to Ukraine". Márton Nagy, National Economy Minister, submitted the government's 2026 budget bill to parliament on Tuesday. Submitting the bill to László Kövér, the house speaker, Minister Nagy said that the most important question for 2026 was whether 'Hungarian money would go to Ukraine'. He added that the Brussels bureaucracy and the majority of the European Parliament wanted to require European countries, and Hungary too, to support and arm Ukraine. He said the 2026 budget bill earmarked Hungary's resources for Hungarian families, not Ukraine. The anti-war budget puts families with children first, he added. Minister Nagy said HUF 4,800bn had been allocated for family policy goals next year. Including spending on the regulated utilities price scheme for households, family support will add up to HUF 5,600bn, he added. Hungary will undertake Europe's biggest tax cut programme in the interest of families, he said, adding that a personal income tax exemption for mothers of two and three children would add up to HUF 320bn and the doubling of the family tax allowance would come to HUF 290bn. Tax preferences will leave more than HUF 1,300bn with families, he said. Pension-related expenditures, affecting over 2 million people, will come to HUF 7,700bn in 2026, including an annual pensioners' bonus and an expected growth-linked premium, he said. A 13pc minimum wage rise will be applied in public administration, while salaries for people on municipal council payrolls will climb by 15pc, following a 15pc pay rise in 2025, too, he said. Increases of teachers' salaries will continue, and Hungarians in uniform will get a bonus equivalent to six-month's salary, adding up to HUF 450bn, he added. Interest payments on retail government securities will come to HUF 800bn in 2026, he said. The budget earmarks HUF 5,500bn for spending on economic development, including around HUF 2,850bn from national resources, he said. Investment spending will come close to HUF 1,600bn, he added. Spending on border defence and protection against illegal migration will come to HUF 2,016bn, or 2pc of GDP, he said. Expenditures on extraordinary security measures will add up to HUF 1,700bn, he added. Over HUF 4,000bn will go to education and HUF 3,919bn to healthcare. Over HUF 653bn has been allocated for cultural activities and more than HUF 135bn for church activities. Expenditures earmarked for social and welfare institution services will rise by close to HUF 223bn to HUF 1,600bn. Kövér said debate of the budget would start May 20 and lawmakers could submit amendments to the bill until May 22. Those amendments will be cleared by MPs on June 10 and the final vote will take place on June 16, he added. Fielding questions, Minister Nagy said insurers had pledged on Tuesday to voluntarily adjust premiums in line with a request from the government, thus no regulatory intervention would be required. He said consumption would remain the engine of economic growth in 2025 and highlighted the performance of the retail and tourism sectors. Performance of the industrial sector and investments hinges in large part on the recovery of the German economy, he added. Minister Nagy said the budget bill was drafted assuming a HUF/EUR rate of 403. It assumes average annual inflation of 4.5pc in 2025 and 3.6pc in 2026, he added. CPI could fall under 4pc around June, he said. As long as food price inflation is over 5pc, a government-mandated cap on markups for a range of food products is justified, he added.
