The Compagnie du Congo pour le Commerce et l’Industrie (CCCI) was a major conglomerate active in the Congo Free State, Belgian Congo and later the Democratic Republic of the Congo where its subsidiary companies engaged in a wide range of activities in the Congo between 1887 and 1971. These included railway and river transport, mining, agriculture, banking, trading and so on. It was the largest commercial enterprise in the Congo for many years. It went through various mergers in the years that followed before its successor Finoutremer was liquidated in 2000.
Foundation
When the Congo Free State was formed in 1885, King Leopold II of Belgium thought of appointing Albert Thys (1849–1915), his secretary for colonial affairs, to head the new state. Thys dissuaded him, but proposed to create the Compagnie du Congo pour le Commerce et l’Industrie (CCCI) and to go to the lower Congo in person to look into building a railway from Matadi to Léopoldville, and to set engineers to work on technical studies. The railway would bypass the rapids between the navigable lower and upper sections of the Congo River. The CCCI was created on 27 December 1886, the first Belgian colonial society to be involved in exploration and exploitation of the Congo. The financier Georges Brugmann (1829–1900) was one of the founders. King Leopold granted the CCCI extensive trading privileges since the enterprise was seen as a bastion against British interests.
On 26 March 1887 the CCCI made an agreement with the Congo Free State that gave it favorable conditions for studying a railway from the lower Congo River to Stanley Pool (