Thanks to a tripling of the herring catch, the Icelandic fishing fleet landed 96,639 metric tons (MT) of wild-capture fish and shellfish in November 2021, representing an increase of 51 percent compared with November 2020.
According to preliminary data gathered by Iceland’s Directorate of Fisheries, November’s pelagic catch was up 149 percent year-on-year to 56,377 MT. In addition to 46,588 MT of herring, the category included 9,765 MT of blue whiting, up 14 percent on the corresponding month of 2020. No mackerel was caught last month, while the capelin catch amounted to just 24 MT.
In the demersal sector, landings totaled 38,691 MT, which was 2 percent less than in November 2020. Icelandic cod catches fell 8 percent to 21,644 MT, while the haddock volume dropped 2 percent to 5,468 MT. The saithe and redfish volumes climbed 1 and 12 percent, respectively, to 4,586 MT and 4,318 MT. There was also an increase of 7 percent in Iceland’s flatfish catch to 1,340 MT, while its shellfish landings slumped 38 percent to 232 MT.
Iceland’s Directorate of Fisheries also totaled the combined December 2020 to November 2021 catch at more than 1.1 million MT, a growth of 9 percent year-on-year. This increase included a 2 percent increase in the demersal species group at 469,909 MT, a pelagic volume that was 16 percent higher at 604,495 MT, 9 percent more flatfish at 24,688 MT, and a 26 percent upturn in the shellfish landed to 6,334 MT.
Meanwhile, new Statistics Iceland analysis looking at the 2020 operating accounts of fishing and fish-processing companies and their balance sheets found the net profit of these sectors increased from 19 percent to 20.1 percent last year, with the net profit of fishing and fish-processing for demersal species increased from 17.6 percent of revenue to 18.4 percent. Net profit in fishing and processing of fishmeal and fish oil increased from 14 percent to 19.2 percent. The total worth of assets of the fisheries were ISK 830 billion (USD 6.4 billion. EUR 5.6 billion), liabilities were worth ISK 496 billion (USD 3.8 billion, EUR 3.4 billion), and equity ISK 333 billion (USD 2.6 billion, EUR 2.3 billion).
In 2020, Iceland’s wild-capture fisheries landings totaled 1,020,594 MT, which was 3 percent less than in the previous year. There were declines in the volumes of demersal fish (down 4 percent to 463,175 MT), pelagics (down 1 percent to 529,427 MT), and shellfish landings (down 51 percent to 4,973 MT), while the flatfish catch increased by 4 percent to 23,013 MT.
Photo courtesy of Hlynur Ársælsson/Shutterstock
