President Boris Yeltsin changed his official car from a Mercedes to a Russian-built ZIL limousine on Thursday after signing a decree aimed at boosting investment in the domestic car industry, ITAR-TASS news agency reported.

"It is not accidental that the head of state came to Kremlin in a Mercedes and rode away in a ZIL," First Deputy Prime Minister Boris Nemtsov told ITAR-TASS on Friday.

After signing the decree, Yeltsin "telephoned an important person and ordered for a ZIL to be brought up to the doorway," Nemtsov said.

A directive initiated by Nemtsov and signed by Yeltsin last year ordered all government officials to change their foreign-made cars for Russian-made ones.

BBC Monitoring (http://www.monitor.bbc.co.uk), based in Caversham in southern England, selects and translates information from radio, television, press, news agencies and the Internet from 150 countries in more than 70 languages.