Iceland’s fishermen landed seafood products totaling 73,473 metric tons (MT) last month, an increase of 3 percent compared with July 2016 thanks to a strong whitefish catch and increases in the flatfish and shellfish harvests.
According to the latest figures gathered by the Directorate of Fisheries and published by Statistics Iceland, the total demersal catch increased by 6 percent year-on-year to 29,703 MT, with cod accounting for 16,921 MT (up 22 percent from July 2016) and haddock at 2,336 MT (up 13 percent). Landings of saithe (3,532 MT) and redfish (4,738 MT) fell by 36 percent and 3 percent respectively.
Iceland’s flatfish landings registered a 35 percent year-on-year increase to 3,182 MT, and its shellfish catch climbed 32 percent to 1,632 MT.
However, its pelagic catch fell 2 percent year-on-year to 38,941 MT, with mackerel landings down 22 percent to 28, 376 MT.
During the last 12-month period, the Icelandic fleet landed 1,120,240 MT of seafood, an increase of 8 percent year-on-year. Only the pelagic category registered any growth during this period – up 23 percent to 675,845 MT. For August 2016 through July 2017, Iceland’s demersal catch was down 9 percent year-on-year to 412,973 MT, its flatfish landings fell 12 percent to 21,600 MT and its shellfish total was down 22 percent to 9,776 MT.
In the calendar year 2016, Iceland’s catch totaled 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. This value was achieved on a total volume of fish and shellfish of 1,067,000 MT, which was 252,000 MT less than in 2015.
