2500 Grams - Food Stamp Baotou City, Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region

Chinese municipal grain coupons of this type were instruments of the rationing system that had governed staple food distribution since the 1950s. By 1991, economic reform had already dismantled rationing in many coastal cities, but inland industrial centers like Baotou — a major steel production hub in Inner Mongolia — retained the system longer, partly due to the large state-enterprise workforce still dependent on planned allocation. This coupon would have been issued to registered urban residents against their household grain entitlement, redeemable at designated state grain shops.

The national rationing system was formally abolished in 1993, making 1991-dated municipal coupons among the last issued in this format. Baotou examples are less commonly encountered outside the region than coupons from eastern provincial capitals.