Facing the global credit crisis, South Korea's leading automakers Hyundai Motor and Kia Motors have decided to cut production overseas. Hyundai and Kia together run overseas production in the United States, China, Turkey, India and the Czech Republic. Hyundai posted a 40 percent drop in U.S. November car sales as against last year while Kia's U.S. sales fell 37 percent.

Hyundai Spokesman Jake Jang said that the company had cut output at all its overseas production lines except a new factory at Czech. Hyundai started its test production at the Czech plant early last month. Jang, without divulging much detail on the matter said that Hyundai had cut its U.S. annual production target to 245,000 units from 260,000 units.

According to a Kia official, the car maker had been adjusting production volumes at plants in China and Slovakia since late October. Japan’s Honda Motor was also reported to be withdrawing its overseas expansion plans, freezing a project to boost capacity in Turkey.