FRANKFURT (Reuters) - Canada's Bombardier Inc (>> Bombardier, Inc.) would likely cut jobs at its site at Henningsdorf near Berlin if it was not picked to supply new trains costing hundreds of millions of euros to Germany's capital, according to a newspaper interview.

"Without this contract we would have difficulty covering our costs in Henningsdorf, our world's biggest site," Lutz Bertling, chief of Bombardier's train business, was quoted saying by German daily Handelsblatt in an interview published on Thursday.

Berlin is seeking an operator for about a third of the city's commuter rail network for 15 years from 2017, who will also have to supply new trains consisting of almost 400 carriages at an estimated cost of around 600 million euros ($827 million).

German state-owned Deutsche Bahn AG , which currently operates the rail network, and Britain's National Express Group Plc (>> National Express Group PLC), are competing for the contract, which is due to be awarded by the end of this year.

If Deutsche Bahn is picked, Bombardier would build the trains at Henningsdorf, where it employs 3,500 workers, which Bertling said makes Bombardier one of the three biggest industrial employers around Berlin.

"If we do not win the S-Bahn (commuter rail) contract, we will not be among the top three anymore. It's as simple as that," he said.

(Reporting by Maria Sheahan; Editing by David Holmes)

Stocks treated in this article : Bombardier, Inc., National Express Group PLC