| has gloss | eng: The Amsterdam Entrepôt is the short-hand term that English-language economic historiographers use to refer to the trade system that helped the Dutch Republic achieve primacy in world trade during the 17th century. The entrepôt system In the Middle Ages local rulers sometimes gave the right to establish staple ports to certain cities. Amsterdam never received such formal rights (unlike e.g. Dordrecht and Veere), but in practice the city established a staple-market economy in the 15th and 16th centuries. This economy was not limited to a single commodity, though at first Baltic grain dominated it. It came into being because the economic and technological conditions of the time required a trade-network based on what is known in economic terms as an Entrepôt, or in other words a central point (for a given geographic area) where goods are brought together and physically traded, before they are re-exported to their final destinations. |
