Fish prices at the Peliyagoda Central Fish Market Complex have fallen slightly, with traders attributing the drop to larger stocks arriving from several areas, Hiru News reported.
Jayasiri Wickramaarachchi, President of the market complex’s Traders’ Association, said the improved supply was the main reason for the easing.
The wholesale prices recorded on Friday:
| Fish | Wholesale price per kilo |
|---|---|
| Linna (sardinella) | Rs. 800 |
| Balaya (skipjack tuna) | Rs. 800 – Rs. 900 |
These are wholesale rates at the country’s main fish market. Retail prices at neighbourhood outlets typically run above them, so the relief reaching household budgets will be smaller than the figures suggest.
Against the national accounts, this is a turn
The report lands the same week as national accounts data showing how badly fisheries performed earlier in the year. In the second quarter, the Department of Census and Statistics recorded marine fishing and aquaculture down 10.1 percent and freshwater fishing and aquaculture down 61.0 percent year-on-year — the two worst-performing components of an agricultural sector that contracted 2.3 percent overall.
The two accounts are not in conflict, and one does not explain the other. They describe different periods: the national accounts cover April to June, while the traders are describing landings in mid-September. Read together, they indicate that supply conditions at the wholesale market are now materially better than those the second-quarter data captured — which would be consistent with the easing of the dry conditions that ran through the middle of the year and with the return of rain to the catchments now forecast.
That remains an inference. No outlet, and no official source, has linked the September landings to the second-quarter collapse, and nothing in the Hiru report addresses whether inland fisheries have recovered at all — the 61 percent figure is a freshwater number, while Peliyagoda is overwhelmingly a marine market.
Not reported
The report gives prices for two species only, no comparison against last week or last month, and no percentage for the fall — so the size of the “slight” drop cannot be established. It does not say which areas the larger stocks are coming from, give any landing volume, or quote a retail price. No fisheries ministry or NARA comment is included, and no other verified newsroom had filed on Friday’s market prices at the time of writing.
