Big drop in landings of blue fin tuna

The volume and total wholesale value of fish landings at the fish market dipped by 28.5 per cent and 20.6 per cent respectively in the second quarter of this year, the National Statistics Office said.

A total of 250,519 kilos of fresh fish was landed at the fish market.

The decline was mainly due to a shortfall in blue fin tuna landings (-39.9 per cent), down from 199,960 kilos in the second quarter of last year to 120,119 kilos in the second quarter this year.

Although dorado landings rose by 29.2 per cent, these amounted to only 1.7 per cent of the total landings.

The wholesale value dipped by 20.6 per cent over the comparative quarter last year. This drop was mainly attributed to a fall in the wholesale value of blue fin tuna (-33.0 per cent). This fall was due to a drop in the volume of blue fin tuna landed although average prices of the same fish rose in the comparative period.

In the first six months of this year, 339,641 kilos of fresh fish, yielding Lm983,606, were landed.

When compared to the same period last year, the volume and wholesale value declined by 21.7 per cent and 13.2 per cent respectively. These drops were largely due to lower landings of blue fin tuna by 40 per cent in weight and 33 per cent in the wholesale value respectively.