Panama Lawmakers on Friday, November 3, Approved A National Moratorium on New Mining Explorations and Extraction Activities. 

After weeks of protests rattled the Central American nation, the law passed in its third and final vote and now requires President Laurentino Cortizo's signature, the National Assembly said in a statement. 

If signed, the law will impose an indefinite moratorium on the mining of metals nationwide, and the Ministry of Commerce and Industry will reject, outright, all new requests for those concessions, the National Assembly said. Agriculture and commercial activity in Panama have been affected for weeks by the ongoing blockades and strikes, and some food items have been increasingly scarce in the capital and elsewhere due to the strike, which almost wholly paralyzed the production and export activity. 

The banana exports were also severely affected, and each day, around 65,000 boxes of the fruit produced couldn't be exported due to the strike, according to the local press. The strike also interrupted the preventive treatment of around 5500-6000 hectares of banana farms against the Black Sigatoka disease, as the strikers did not allow the personnel to enter and prepare the fields. 

The total damage suffered by the local banana industry will still be assessed once the situation returns to normal, allegedly in 10-14 days after the Supreme Court of Justice decision.