GENERAL Motors Corp's European unit plans to reduce production by about 40,000 vehicles by the end of the year as credit-market turmoil deflates demand.

The company will suspend operations at all plants in the region this month.

The Adam Opel brand's factory in Eisenach, Germany, will start a three-week production pause next week, while the plant in Bochum, Germany, is in the second week of a two-week closure, Andreas Kroemer, a spokesman for the Ruesselsheim, Germany-based division, said in a telephone interview.

'The financial crisis is impacting demand,' Kroemer said. 'We don't want to stockpile.'

Car sales slid 16 percent in Europe in August, the biggest monthly decline since 1999, and GM's brands based in the region suffered an 18-percent drop, according to the Brussels-based European Automobile Manufacturers' Association.

Auto makers such as Bayerische Motoren Werke AG and Daimler AG, the world's two biggest makers of luxury vehicles, have been reducing production in recent weeks.

The temporary plant shutdowns also affect Opel's plants in Ellesmere Port, England, and Zaragoza,