In 2015 the national fishing fleet captured 140,800 tonnes of fresh and chilled fishery (119,900 tons in 2014), traded in fish auction for EUR 261 million, 5,4% higher than in 2014. The average price of landed fish, 1.81€/kg, was the lowest since 2012. The higher volume of catches resulted exclusively from landed fish on the Mainland, especially marine fish such as mackerel (+57.5%) and horse mackerel (+33.7%).
In 2015 around 13,729 tons of sardines were traded at fish auction, of which 13,690 tonnes in the Mainland, the lowest amount since there are systematic statistical records by species, with the average price of transactions in fish auction having reached the highest value of the last twenty years (2.19€/kg). On the other hand, imports of sardines (fresh and frozen) increased at an average annual rate of 11.6% in quantity and 15.9% in value between 2010 and 2015, with imports reaching EUR 35.5 million in 2015 and a volume that was nearly the double of recorded catches.
The adaptation of fishing activity to sardine catch limitations has strengthened the importance of undervalued species; the species most fished in Portugal was mackerel with 46,400 tons in 2015, which accounted for 33.0% of the total volume of fresh or chilled fish catches.