Iceland’s fishing fleet landed a total of 109,305 metric tons (MT) of seafood products last month, an increase of 5 percent compared with April 2016 thanks to a strong pelagic catch, with blue whiting providing the biggest year-on-year increase.
According to the latest figures gathered by the Directorate of Fisheries and published by Statistics Iceland, the total pelagic catch increased by 18 percent year-on-year to 67,174 MT, with a 19 percent jump in a blue whiting catch that amounted to 66,656 MT.
The overall demersal catch fell 8 percent to 39,944 MT with cod landings down 10 percent to 18,076 MT. There were, however, modest increases in both the haddock and saithe landings.
There were also double-digit declines in Iceland’s flatfish and shellfish landings, which amounted to 1,364 MT and 824 MT respectively.
During the last 12-month period, Iceland has landed less than 1.1 million MT of seafood, a decrease of 5 percent year-on-year.
In 2016, Iceland’s catch achieved a total value of ISK 133 billion (USD 1.3 billion, EUR 1.2 billion), a decrease of 12.1 percent compared to the ISK 151.3 billion (USD 1.5 billion, EUR 1.3 billion) in the previous year.
