According to historian Martin Conway, the term is "singularly inappropriate" to describe Belgian economic recovery during the period because "growth rates, salaries, and levels of investment lagged substantially behind, and production costs significantly above, those of Belgium's competitor economies".[8] Government policy focused on monetary stability rather than on investment.[9] Taken by surprise by the speed of the country's economic recovery, the Belgian government claimed little of the Marshall Aid that was being used by its competitors to develop new industries.[10] By 1953, Belgium's industrial production was 11 percent higher than its 1929 output, compared with a 70 percent difference in other Western European countries.[5] The result was that Belgian heavy industry faced an "acute structural crisis" in the 1950s as Belgian industrial exports became uncompetitive.