Overall, the banks and companies in question responded to the logic of the 'colonial pact', which was centred around four fundamental rules: the colonies were forbidden from industrialising, and had to content themselves with supplying raw materials to the metropole which transformed them into finished products that were then resold to the colonies; the metropole enjoyed the monopoly of colonial exports and imports; it also held a monopoly in the shipping of colonial products abroad; finally, the metropole granted commercial preferences to the products of the colonies. This 'colonial pact' established relationships of dependence that forced the colonies to constantly adapt to the economic conjuncture of the metropole and to the requirements of its economic development.

Fanny Pigeaud_ Ndongo Samba Sylla, Africa's Last Colonial Curr…, loc. 62