Fishermen in Iceland landed ISK 11.6 billion (USD 105.8 million, EUR 91 million) worth of seafood in May 2018, up 4.5 percent compared with the corresponding month of 2017. While there were increased earnings from both the flatfish and shellfish categories, the latest figures issued by Statistics Iceland show that the rise was largely due to bumper blue whiting catches boosting the pelagic value by 44.8 percent year-on-year.
Iceland’s pelagic value soared to ISK 1.8 billion (USD 16.4 million, EUR 14.1 million), with the blue whiting catch accounting for all but ISK 3 million (USD 27,350, EUR 23,550) of the total.
At the same time, the flatfish and shellfish catch values climbed to ISK 1.3 billion (USD 11.9 million, EUR 10.2 million) and ISK 359.5 million (USD 3.3 million, EUR 2.8 million), respectively.
Meanwhile, the country’s demersal catch value fell by 4.6 percent to less than ISK 8.1 billion (USD 73.8 million, EUR 63.6 million), with cod’s value decreasing by 1.6 percent compared with May 2017 to ISK 5.1 billion (USD 46.5 million, EUR 40 million). There were also decreases in the catch values of haddock, saithe, and redfish at ISK 716.1 million (USD 6.5 million, EUR 5.6 million), ISK 618 million (USD 5.6 million, EUR 4.9 million) and ISK 844.2 million (USD 7.7 million, EUR 6.6 million), respectively.
The accumulated total catch value for the 12 months June 2017 through May 2018 increased by 6.3 percent year-on-year to ISK 122.2 billion (USD 1.1 billion, EUR 959.6 million), with increases in the demersal and flatfish catch values of 10.3 percent and 23.1 percent, respectively. Conversely, earnings from the pelagic and shellfish sectors decreased by 8.4 percent and 5.8 percent, respectively.
During this period, ISK 68.3 billion (USD 623.3 million, EUR 536.5 million) worth of Iceland’s total catch went directly for domestic processing (up 13.8 percent), while ISK 17.5 billion (USD 159.8 million, EUR 137.5 million) worth was sold at auction for domestic processing (up 1.1 percent). Landings valued at almost ISK 4.8 billion (USD 43.8 million, EUR 37.7 million) were exported in containers (up 7.2 percent), and the frozen-at-sea catch fell by 3.2 percent year-on-year to less than ISK 31.4 billion (USD 286.8 million, EUR 246.8 million).
