Porsche has stopped production at its Zuffenhausen for the first time due to a decline in worldwide demand.

The German manufacturer as scheduled an additional seven days off up until the end of January 2009.

Porsche said: “Even we cannot escape the current economic crisis in the automobile industry.

“Because the flexitime accounts of Porsche employees are well filled due to the high production capacity in the last year, balance is possible without short-time work.”

Porsche said it is no longer expecting to achieve high total sales figures in this financial year, ending July 31, 2009 to be below the level of 98,652 vehicles that it saw last year.