BERLIN, Sept 22 (Reuters) - Germany's Deutsche Bahnexpects the government's 50 billion euro climate change packageto generate the railway company's biggest growth spurt in its180-year history, the state-owned firm's boss said on Sunday.
In a telephone press conference, Richard Lutz said themeasures announced on Friday, including a cut in value-added tax(VAT) on train tickets, would give it an additional 20 billioneuros in revenue by 2030.
Although the package, in response to growing public concernabout the impact of climate change, disappointed climateactivists, individual measures such as surcharges on domesticflights and the VAT cut are expected to have an impact on thecompanies concerned.
"We are now on the attack and rebuilding," he said. Europe'srailway companies are expected to be major beneficiaries of ashift away from car and air transport towards publictransportation offerings that emit proportionally less carbon.
The company planned to buy 30 new high-speed trains by 2023to cater for the expected growth in passenger numbers, a onebillion euro bonanza for train-building companies.
The railway's current ICE-4 trains are built by Siemensand Bombardier, but Lutz said the new unitswould not be of the same type. France's Alstom isanother potential supplier.
Financially strained Deutsche Bahn, which has been underfire over delays and for having insufficient capacity, said itwould invest 11 billion euros of the extra cash inrecapitalising. Despite running at a profit, the company has hadto take on extra debt to finance investment.
Deutsche Bahn operates Europe's largest railway by tracklength, though at 39,000 km it is far shorter than at its peaklength of 58,000 km.(Reporting by Markus Wacket, writing by Thomas Escritt; editingby David Evans)