from that of the 1990s. The devalued peso made Argentine exports cheap and competitive abroad and discouraged imports. In addition, the high price of soybeans in the international market produced massive amounts of foreign currency; China became a major buyer of Argentina's soy products. The government encouraged import substitution and accessible credit for businesses, staged an aggressive plan to improve tax collection, and allocated large sums for social welfare but controlled expenditure in other fields. The peso slowly rose, reaching a 3-to-1 rate to the dollar. Agricultural exports grew and tourism returned. The huge trade surplus ultimately caused such an inflow of dollars that the government was forced to begin intervening to keep the peso from rising further, which would have adversely affected budget balances by limiting export tax revenues and discouraged further reindustrialisation. The central bank started rebuilding its dollar reserves. By December 2005, foreign currency reserves had reached $28 billion (they were later reduced by the payment of the full debt to the IMF in ). The downside of this reserve accumulation strategy is that US dollars had to be bought with freshly issued pesos, which risked inflation. The Central Bank sterilized its purchases by buying Treasury letters. In this way the exchange rate stabilised to about 3:1. The currency exchange issue was complicated by two opposing factors: a sharp increase in imports since 2004, which raised the demand for dollars, and the return of foreign investment, which brought fresh currency from abroad, after the successful restructuring of about three-quarters of the external debt. The government set up controls and restrictions aimed at keeping short-term speculative investment from destabilising financial markets. The country faced a potential debt crisis in late July 2014, when a New York judge ordered Argentina to pay hedge funds the full interest on bonds it had swapped at a discount rate during 2002. If the judgement proceeded, Argentina argued, the country would become insolvent and have a second debt default. Argentina's recovery suffered a minor setback in 2004, when rising industrial demand caused a short-lived energy crisis. Argentina continued to grow strongly, however, and GDP jumped 8.8% in 2003, 9.0% in 2004, 9.2% in 2005, 8.5% in 2006 and 8.7% in 2007. Though wages averaged a 17% annual increase from 2002 to 2008, and rising 25% in the year to May 2008, inflation ate away at the increases: 12.5% in 2005; 10% in 2006;