Honda also trimmed production earlier this year and during during the Persian Gulf war in 1991.

Honda recently said it would trim production to bring inventories in line with sales.

With consumer demand weaker, manufacturers appear to be trimming production.

G.M. will trim production by 9 percent, and Ford by 2 percent.

Honda has been forced to trim production significantly at its Ohio assembly plant.

The company said last week that it would trim production by about 20 planes over the rest of this year.

Toward that end, OPEC is likely to begin trimming daily production in 2001.

Even countries pumping within their quotas would trim production in an effort to raise prices, Mr. Boussena said.

G.M. had already announced that it would trim production in the quarter.

And with overall sales down nearly 24 percent in the first 10 days of the month, the companies are trimming production.