The fishing fleet of the United Kingdom achieved operating profit and income boost in 2014, according to a report released on the opening day of the International Institute of Fisheries Economics and Trade (IIFET) 2016 conference, which is taking place in Aberdeen.
According to Fishing Fleet 2014 Report, published by Seafish, total fishing generated a 16 per cent income growth compared to 2013, with GBP 868 million worth of fish landed by the UK fishing fleet.
Operating profit also increased significantly and was estimated at GBP 216 million in 2014, a 54 per cent increase from the previous year. An estimated GBP 157 million of net profit was generated in 2014 equal to 17 per cent of total income.
The large increase in the total income of UK fleet from recorded landings was mainly due to an increase in the weight of pelagic species landings. In 2014, the average prices for demersal and shellfish species both increased by 12 per cent. The reduction of the fuel price has also contributed to the improvement of the economic performance.
However, provisional estimates for 2015 show total fishing income decreasing by 11 per cent to GBP 772 million. This has been driven by the impact of the Russia’s EU trade ban on the pelagic sector and the subsequent decrease in the average mackerel price.
Arina Motova, Senior Economist at Seafish, pointed out: “This is a positive picture for most of the UK’s fishing fleet even though the total 2015 estimates are more conservative. Our forecast shows that all UK fleets benefited from the oil price reduction and the economic performance indicators of most fleets show an improving profitability picture despite challenges such as the Landing Obligation coming in to effect for some fisheries.”
After last year’s fishing fleet report relaunch under its Quay Issues brand, Seafish has continued making improvements to its suite of annual economic reports to make the information both easier to understand and more detailed. Notable in this year’s report is new a chapter providing comparisons of the relative performance of vessels in each of the home nations as well as tables looking at each fleet’s dependency on key stocks.
Arina Motova continued: “We got some excellent feedback last year on the new style of the fishing fleet report with many business owners saying they found the analysis more informative for making decisions. We hope the additional information in the 2014 report, such as fleet comparisons and employment, as well as data visualisation tools used will make it even more easy to understand and useful for industry and policy makers going forward.”
Seafish are now looking forward to the 2015 Economics of the UK Fishing Fleet report and a team of Seafish researchers will spend the next few weeks at ports around the UK collecting data for inclusion and to verify the 2015 forecasts.
1995 – 2016 Fish Info & Services Co.Ltd