The Icelandic fishing fleet landed 81,480 metric tons (MT) of seafood products last month, an increase of 13 percent compared with October 2015, despite declines in its demersal, flatfish and shellfish landings, according to the latest figures gathered by the Directorate of Fisheries and published by Statistics Iceland.
The growth was thanks to a much larger pelagic catch, which grew 40 percent year-on-year to 38,753 MT, with increases in herring and mackerel landings of 45 percent and 74 percent, respectively.
The demersal catch fell 2 percent to 40,384 MT with only cod registering any growth (9 percent), while flatfish landings were down 35 percent to 1,628 MT and shellfish dropped 4 percent to 716 MT.
During the last 12-month period, Iceland landed less than 1.1 million MT of seafood, a decrease of 18 percent year-on-year.
