In a report published on Thursday, 7 January, the Scientific, Technical and Economic Committee of Fisheries (STECF) estimated that, due to the Covid-19 pandemic, projections indicate a 17% decrease in landed value in 2020 compared to estimates for 2019. It would be a 15% decrease compared to the figures for 2018.
The STECF indicates that the impact of the pandemic is leading to lower demand for fishery products, price stabilisation, reduced fuel costs (26% drop), and less activity than in 2019.
That said, EU experts predict that, as a whole, the EU fleet will have continued to be profitable in 2020 with a net profit margin of 14%.
The EU fleet’s profitability fell in 2018, the year it recorded a net profit of nearly €1 billion—a 23% drop compared to 2017. The decrease in catches and the increase in fuel prices partly explain this drop.
In 2018, the EU fishing fleet consisted of 81,199 vessels with a gross tonnage (GT) of 1.56 million GT and engine power of 6.3 million kilowatts. The EU fleet continued to decrease at a similar rate to that observed in previous years.
Link to the STECF Annual Report 2020: http://bit.ly/38mon5p (Original version in French by Lionel Changeur)