The Icelandic fleet caught 1.27 million metric tons (MT) of seafood in the 12 months through June 2018, a decrease of 8 percent compared with the previous 12 months. However, the country’s demersal catch grew by 16 percent with significantly increased landings of cod, haddock, saithe and redfish, finds the latest preliminary figures issued by Statistics Iceland.
While the combined demersal landings for June fell by 2 percent to 32,302 MT, the category’s 12-month total increased to 475,216 MT. Of this, cod accounted for 279,513 MT (+16 percent), haddock was 40,984 MT (+16 percent), saithe was 56,625 (+21 percent) and redfish was 63,396 MT (+14 percent). Other demersal landings amounted to 34,698 MT (+8 percent).
Looking ahead to the new catching season starting September, Iceland’s cod, haddock and saithe quotas have been raised to 262,000 MT, 56,700 MT and 79,000 MT respectively.
