Flagging sales in Japan has Nissan’s CEO so worried that he’s placing a new executive in charge of its American markets so that he can concentrate on the trouble back home. Carlos Ghosn, who’s the CEO of both Renault and Nissan, is credited with bringing the Japanese carmaker back from the brink of bankruptcy during the late 1990’s and is now planning to take control of its treasury department. As of the 1st of April, Hiroto Saikawa will replace Ghosn in managing the American markets, while Hidetoshi Imazu will take Saikawa’s old job as the chairman of its European team.

Nissan’s sales have been falling for the past 17 months in the Japanese domestic market, where overall demand for both full-sized and compact cars have been on the decline. Unfortunately for Nissan, its sales have fallen much more sharply than its rivals with blame centering on a small lineup and a lack of new models.

Automotive News reports that Nissan will be cutting back production levels at its Oppama and Tochigi plants in Japan next month. This won’t be the first round of cuts for Nissan either. It shut down a production run of its slow selling Teana sedan in September last year, but it’s confident that output in export markets will result in a net increase for production over the coming year.