Swedish central bank appoints Aino Bunge new deputy governor

STOCKHOLM (Reuters) -Sweden's Riksbank said on Friday it had appointed Aino Bunge to a six-year term as deputy governor, replacing Cecilia Skingsley who left the central bank in August.

Bunge comes from the post of vice president and head of staff at AMF Insurance and was before that director general for financial markets and institutions at the Swedish finance ministry.

Bunge said she hoped her experience from the financial sector would be useful. "It is in situations like this that you feel the value of price stability and a strong and independent central bank," she told a news conference.

She will take up her new role on Dec.1 and her first scheduled monetary policy decision is in February.

Sweden is experiencing its highest inflation in 30 years, forcing the Riksbank to make a policy U-turn. It has raised rates twice this year, with more steep hikes expected before year-end. [L8N2YH1X9]

The Riksbank's General Council also named Deputy Governor Anna Breman as the central bank's new first deputy governor.

The executive board of the Riksbank consists of six members, who are appointed for a term of office of five or six years.

In June, the central bank appointed the head of the national financial regulator Erik Thedeen as its new chief to replace long-serving Governor Stefan Ingves when he leaves at the end of the year.

(Reporting by Johan Ahlander, Anna Ringstrom, Stine Jacobsen and Essi Lehto, editing by Terje Solsvik and Niklas Pollard)