The Icelandic fishing fleet landed 112,982 metric tons (MT) of seafood products last month, an increase of 22 percent compared with September 2015, according to the latest figures gathered by the Directorate of Fisheries and published by Statistics Iceland.
During 12 months through September 2016, Iceland landed less than 1.1 million MT of seafood, a decrease of 20 percent year-on-year, including a 35 percent reduction in its pelagic catch, which totaled 566,712 MT. Within the pelagic category, the country’s herring landings were down 27 percent year-on-year to 107,573 MT, its capelin catch was down 71 percent to 101,089 MT, while its mackerel catch was flat at 168,165 MT.
However, there was a 38 percent improvement in last month’s pelagic catch, which totaled 74,002 MT. This was largely thanks to a 61 percent increase in the mackerel landings – up to 53,076 MT.
For the aforementioned 12-month period, there was a 6 percent improvement in demersal landings, which totaled 462,426 MT. Within this category, the cod catch increased 10 percent to 263,395 MT, the redfish catch increased 13 percent to 65,283 MT and the haddock catch increased 4 percent to 40,457 MT. But the saithe catch dropped 3 percent to 49,789 MT.
Iceland’s flatfish and shellfish catches have also grown over the last 12 months, with landings amounting to 25,527 MT and 12,931 MT respectively.
Last month’s demersal catch decreased by 2 percent compared with September 2015 to 35,710 MT, with a 3 percent decrease in fishermen’s cod landings, which totaled 22,130 MT.
Statistic Iceland has also reported that its fishing fleet landed seafood with a total value of ISK 139.8 billion (USD 1.2 billion, EUR 1.1 billion) in the 12-month period from July 2015 to June 2016, a decrease of 8.3 percent year-on-year. For this period, the value of the country’s demersal and flatfish catches increased by 0.3 percent and 25.8 percent respectively, but the pelagic catch value decreased by 36.6 percent.
