Ostend Company
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| Company type | Chartered company |
|---|---|
| Industry | Trade |
| Founded | 19 December 1722 |
| Founder | Pieter de Potter, Thomas Ray and Charles VI |
| Defunct | 16 March 1731 |
| Fate | Dissolved, in return for the signing of the Pragmatic Sanction by Great Britain and the Dutch Republic |
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| Products | Tea, spices, silk, porcelain, metals, grain, rice, soybeans, sugarcane |
The Ostend Company (Dutch: Oostendse Compagnie; French: Compagnie d'Ostende), officially the General Company Established in the Austrian Netherlands for Commerce and Navigation in the Indies (French: Compagnie générale établie dans les Pays-Bas Autrichiens pour le Commerce et la Navigation aux Indes) was a chartered trading company in the Austrian Netherlands (modern-day Belgium) in the Holy Roman Empire which was established in 1722 to trade with the East and West Indies. It took its name from the Flemish port city of Ostend.
For a few years it provided strong competition for the more established British, Dutch, and French East India Companies, notably in the lucrative tea trade with China. It established two settlements in India. Despite its profitability, the company was eventually ordered to close down in 1731 after the British government exerted diplomatic pressure on Austria, fearing the company's effects on their own traders. Its disestablishment was made a precondition for the Treaty of Vienna and for creating an alliance between the two states. The Ostend Company can be considered the first attempt by Austria to trade with the East Indies; the second being the much less successful Austrian East India Company, founded in 1775.