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

Chinese municipal grain ration coupons of this period were administrative instruments, not currency — issued by local grain bureaus under the state rationing system that had governed food distribution since the 1950s. By 1991, that system was already being dismantled province by province as market reforms accelerated, making late-issue coupons like this one short-lived in practice. Baotou, as a major industrial center built largely around steel production, had a large non-agricultural population entirely dependent on such allocations.

National grain rationing was formally abolished in 1993, rendering these coupons void within two years of printing.