Iceland’s fishermen landed a total of 53,019 metric tons (MT) of seafood products last month, an increase of 27 percent compared with June 2016 thanks to a strong cod catch and a huge increase in the blue whiting harvest.
According to the latest figures gathered by the Directorate of Fisheries and published by Statistics Iceland, the total pelagic catch increased by 577 percent year-on-year to 16,146 MT, with blue whiting accounting for 15,581 MT – up from just 2 MT a year previously.
The overall demersal catch fell 8 percent to 32,824 MT last month, with cod landings up 3 percent to 18,304 MT. Haddock landings were on par with June 2016 at 1,778 MT, while the saithe (4,565 MT) and redfish (4,178 MT) catches fell by 23 percent and 9 percent respectively.
Iceland’s flatfish landings registered a 12 percent year-on-year increase to 3,244 MT, but its shellfish catch dropped 30 percent to 742 MT.
During the last 12-month period, the Icelandic fleet landed more than 1.1 million MT of seafood, an increase of 5 percent year-on-year. Only the pelagic category registered any growth during this period – up 18 percent to 676,993 MT. For July 2016 through June 2017, Iceland’s demersal catch was down 9 percent year-on-year to 411,304 MT, its flatfish fell 17 percent to 20,778 MT and its shellfish was down 25 percent to 9,381 MT.
In 2016, Iceland’s catch achieved a total value of ISK 133 billion (USD 1.3 billion, EUR 1.1 billion), a decrease of 12.1 percent compared to the ISK 151.3 billion (USD 1.4 billion, EUR 1.2 billion) in the previous year.
