The country's Marine Research Institute and the Ministry of Fisheries have both approved a shrimp (prawn) quota of 150 tons for the area of Arnarfjordur in North West Iceland.

Arnarfjordur used to be one of the most important areas for inshore shrimp fishing and has now been closed for three years. A spokesman for the Icelandic fishing industry said everyone hoped that the reactivation of this area is an indication that things are moving into the right direction.

The Icelandic shellfish industry is facing long term problems and has seen a number of coastal plant closures or cutbacks over the last few months. Only recently Samherji announced that 20 people will lose their jobs when the factory near the port of Akureyri ceases production, while a further ten will be retained by the company and transferred to other activities.

According to Gestur Geirsson, managing director of Samherji's on-shore operations: "It is not just quotas, but international currency exchange rates, which are now playing havoc with some aspects of the fishing industry.

"The exaggerated strength of the Icelandic krona in the wake of the Central Bank's totally unrealistic interest rate policy has resulted in an utterly impossible working environment for export industries and also in widespread mass redundancies as we have seen in recent months."

Over the last six months, the operation of prawn plants in Iceland has been based to a large extent on imported raw materials. The catch levels around Iceland last year had reached an all-time low for the island’s 40 year history of prawn fishing, but this week's decision by the Marine Research Institute indicates that stocks are improving in certain areas.

Two years ago Fisheries Minister Einar K Gudfinnsson appointed a special working group to look into the future of the industry and its prospects for the future. The results were not encouraging.

The Ministry statement found the state of the shrimp stocks in Iceland have been poor in past years and catches have been at their lowest for 20 years. There have been shortfalls in catches in deep sea and inshore fisheries are virtually closed. It is impossible to say when there may be a change in this situation.

Mr Gudfinnsson said: "For shrimp fisheries to have a future in Iceland, there has to be shrimp fishing in our waters. If Icelandic processors expect to operate using imported raw material, the industry's situation will only deteriorate further. Those countries that compete with Iceland on deep water shrimp are also experiencing difficulties, but in these case the problems is not a lack of fishing opportunities but rather low product prices, unfavourable exchange rates and a great deal of competition brought on by more shrimp being available on the market."

Prawn processing factories have been steadily decreasing in number over the past years. There are now only less than half a dozen plants still in operation in Iceland, compared to more than 30 a few years ago when the industry was at its peak.

www.fishupdate.com is published by Special Publications. Special Publications also publish FISHupdate magazine, Fish Farmer, the Fish Industry Yearbook, the Scottish Seafood Processors Federation Diary, the Fish Farmer Handbook and a range of wallplanners.

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