Answer:
The correct answer is - A. It was granted a monopoly for trade and political authority by the Dutch government.
Step-by-step explanation:
Dutch East India Company was established by Dutch government as a megacorporation in 1602 to deal with rival English East India Company.
In addition to trading silk and cotton with Mughal India, this Company started to trade spices with South-East Asia. In order to strengthen its position in the region and increase profits, the Dutch government granted the Dutch East India Company a monopoly for trading species in the Netherlands for 21 years. As a result, the company was selling such species as cloves and nutmeg for a price up to 17 times higher than the price it paid for them in Southeast Asia, particularly in Indonesia. While Dutch profits leaped, local Indonesian communities were destroyed.