The Icelandic fleet caught 146,742 metric tons (MT) of seafood last month, an increase of 30 percent compared with April 2017, with large rises in the volumes of whitefish, pelagic fish, flatfish and shellfish landed, according to the latest preliminary figures issued by Statistics Iceland.
A total 49,116 MT of demersal species were landed in April (up 23 percent), with cod accounting for 23,432 MT (+30 percent), saithe at 7,452 MT (up 25 percent) and redfish at 7,245 MT (up five percent). The haddock catch amounted to 3,945 MT, which was unchanged from the previous year.
Pelagic landings for the month climbed by 32 percent year-on-year to 93,824 MT, which was driven by a 33 percent spike in the blue whiting catch at 93,824 MT.
At the same time, the shellfish catch increased by 95 percent to 1,607 MT and flatfish landings jumped 61 percent to 2,195 MT.
Statistics Iceland also reported that the accumulated total catch for the May April 2017 through April 2018 increased by 17 percent to close to 1.3 million MT, with landings of demersal (481,806 MT), pelagic (747,849 MT), flatfish (24,943 MT) and shellfish (10,990 MT) species, rising by 19 percent, 17 percent, 19 percent, and six percent, respectively.
