At the end of the 15th century the foreign trading houses were transferred from Bruges to Antwerp.

There was, however, a lack of domestic capital; a shortage solved by cash input from foreign trade houses and wholesale companies in Stockholm and Gothenburg.

Historically, Maurel & Prom was based in Bordeaux and was one of France's largest family-run shipping and foreign trade houses.

"Prices have fallen remarkably, and foreign trading houses that used to handle our nutmeg marketing failed to stabilize them," said Yantje Worotitjan, chairman of the national nutmeg association.

Along the way (next to the Hotel Yokohama) you'll pass the former English House No. 7, as the foreign trading houses were called, the only one to survive the earthquake.

Jardines was the first foreign trading house to establish a base in Japan when William Keswick, a descendant of William Jardine's sister Jean, was sent there in 1859 following the country's opening up to the outside world.

A French Navy captive, Bidé de Maurville, who wrote the account of his stay in Morocco in his 1765 book Relations de l'affaire de Larache, reported the presence of an important number of foreign trading houses in the city : Dutch, Danish, British and French.