To support state industries and finance subsidies, Turkey issued significant amounts of government debt. To limit the amount of debt, the government expanded the money supply to finance spending. The result was rampant inflation and high interest rates. During the 1990s, inflation averaged over 80 percent a year while real interest rates rose to more than 50 percent on a number of occasions. Despite this the Turkish economy continued to grow at a healthy pace of 6 percent annually in real terms, a remarkable achievement