<P> The United East India Company or the United East Indian Company, also known as the United East Indies Company (Dutch: Vereenigde Oostindische Compagnie; or Verenigde Oost - Indische Compagnie in modern spelling; VOC), referred to by the British as the Dutch East India Company, or sometimes known as the Dutch East Indies Company, was originally established as a chartered company in 1602, when the Dutch government granted it a 21 - year monopoly on the Dutch spice trade . A pioneering early model of the multinational corporation in its modern sense, the company is also often considered to be the world's first true transnational corporation . In the early 1600s, the VOC became the first company in history to issue bonds and shares of stock to the general public . In other words, the VOC was the world's first formally listed public company, because it was the first corporation to be ever actually listed on an official (formal) stock exchange . As the first historical model of the quasi-fictional concept of the megacorporation, the VOC possessed quasi-governmental powers, including the ability to wage war, imprison and execute convicts, negotiate treaties, strike its own coins, and establish colonies . </P> <P> The VOC played crucial roles in business, financial, socio - politico - economic, military - political, diplomatic, ethnic, and exploratory maritime history of the world . In the early modern period, the VOC was also the driving force behind the rise of corporate - led globalization, corporate power, corporate identity, corporate culture, corporate social responsibility, corporate ethics, corporate governance, corporate finance, and financial capitalism . As a transcontinental employer, the company was an early pioneer of outward foreign direct investment at the dawn of modern capitalism . With its pioneering institutional innovations and powerful roles in world history, the company was considered by many to be the first major, first modern, first global, most valuable, and most influential corporation ever . In terms of military - political history, the VOC, along with the Dutch West India Company (WIC / GWIC), was seen as the international arm of the Dutch Republic and the symbolic power of the Dutch Empire . The VOC was historically a military - political - economic complex rather than a pure trading company (or shipping company). The government - backed but privately financed company was effectively a state in its own right, or a state within another state . In terms of exploratory maritime history of the world, as a major force behind the Golden Age of Dutch exploration and discovery (c. 1590s--1720s), the VOC - funded exploratory voyages such as those led by Willem Janszoon (Duyfken), Henry Hudson (Halve Maen) and Abel Tasman revealed largely unknown landmasses to the western world . In the Golden Age of Netherlandish cartography (c. 1570s--1670s), the VOC navigators and cartographers helped shape geographical knowledge of the modern world as we know them today . The commercial networks of Dutch transnational companies, like the VOC and WIC / GWIC, provided an infrastructure which was accessible to people with a scholarly interest in the exotic world . </P> <P> The company was formed to profit from the Malukan spice trade, and in 1619 it forcibly established a capital in the port city of Jayakarta, changing the name to Batavia (modern - day Jakarta). Over the next two centuries the Company acquired additional ports as trading bases and safeguarded their interests by taking over surrounding territory . It remained an important trading concern and paid an 18% annual dividend for almost 200 years . Statistically, the VOC eclipsed all of its rivals in international trade for almost 200 years of existence . Between 1602 and 1796 the VOC sent almost a million Europeans to work in the Asia trade on 4,785 ships, and netted for their efforts more than 2.5 million tons of Asian trade goods . By contrast, the rest of Europe combined sent only 882,412 people from 1500 to 1795, and the fleet of the British East India Company (EIC), the VOC's nearest competitor, was 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 enjoyed huge profits from its spice monopoly through most of the 17th century . </P> <P> Due to structural changes, the Fourth Anglo - Dutch War, and French invasion of the Netherlands, the company was nationalised in 1800, and its possessions and debt were taken over by the government of the Batavian Republic (1795--1806). The VOC's territories became the Dutch East Indies and were expanded over the course of the 19th century to include the whole of the Indonesian archipelago, which would later become the modern Republic of Indonesia . </P>

Where did the dutch east india company trade
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