The Icelandic fleet caught almost 1.27 million metric tons (MT) of seafood in the 12 months through August 2018, a rise of 13 percent compared with the previous 12 months. Supporting this growth, the country’s demersal catch increased by 14 percent to 476,917 MT with significantly increased landings of cod, haddock, saithe and redfish, finds the latest preliminary figures issued by Statistics Iceland.
Cod accounted for 277,556 MT (+11 percent), haddock was 43,585 MT (+23 percent), saithe was 59,044 MT (+30 percent) and redfish was 62,492 MT (+10 percent). Other demersal landings amounted to 34,239 MT (+6 percent).
For the new catching season that started this month, Iceland’s cod, haddock and saithe quotas have been raised to 262,000 MT, 56,700 MT and 79,000 MT respectively.
Pelagic landings for the aforementioned 12-month period totaled 753,514 MT, up 13 percent year-on-year. This was largely due to a 43-percent increase in the blue whiting catch at 297,306 MT. Both herring and mackerel climed by 2 percent to 117,119 MT and 152,756 MT respectively.
Meanwhile, the flatfish catch reached 26,747 MT (+21 percent), and shellfish totaled 12,297 MT (+29 percent).
