The Icelandic fishing fleet landed just 7,610 metric tons (MT) of seafood products last month, a decrease of 90 percent compared with January 2016, with large declines across all species as a result of the two-month fishing strike.
According to the latest figures gathered by the Directorate of Fisheries and published by Statistics Iceland, the total demersal catch fell 79 percent to 7,473 MT with cod and haddock landings down 74 percent and 69 percent respectively.
Flatfish landings fell 97 percent year-on-year to just 52 MT and shellfish dropped 89 percent to 85 MT.
There were no pelagic landings by Icelandic vessels in January.
During the last 12-month period, Iceland landed 1 million MT of seafood, a decrease of 23 percent or 295,000 MT year-on-year.
A narrow vote on 18 February resulted in fishermen’s unions coming to an agreement with Fisheries Iceland over pay and work conditions, thereby ending a strike that began in mid-December.
