Vereenigde Ost-Indisch Compagnie (V.O.C.), Dutch East India Company

The Dutch East India Company is considered by many to be the first major and the most successful corporation in history.

The VOC is historically a military-political-economic complex rather than a pure trading company.

The company is also seen as the international arm of the Dutch Republic and the symbolic power of the Dutch Empire. Statistically, the VOC eclipses all of its rivals in international trade for almost two hundfred years of existence.

Between 1602 and 1796 the VOC sends almost a million Europeans to work in the Asia trade on 4,785 ships, and nes for their efforts more than 2.5 million tons of Asian trade goods.

By contrast, the rest of Europe combined sends only 882,412 people from 1500 to 1795, and the fleet of the English (later British) East India Company, the VOC's nearest competitor, is a distant second to its total traffic with 2,690 ships and a mere one-fifth the tonnage of goods carried by the VOC.

The VOC enjoys huge profits from its spice monopoly through most of the seventeenth century.

The VOC is formed to profit from the Malukan spice trade, and in 1619 it establishes a capital in the port city of Jayakarta, changing the name to Batavia (now Jakarta).

Over the next two centuries the Company acquires additional ports as trading bases and safeguards their interests by taking over surrounding territory.

It remains an important trading concern and pays an eighteen percent annual dividend for almost two hundred years.

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