Norway appoints Johnsen as new finance minister

OSLO Oct 20 (Reuters) - Norway's Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg picked Labour veteran Sigbjoern Johnsen as finance minister on Tuesday, in an expected cabinet reshuffle following last month's parliamentary election victory by the centre-left.

Johnsen, 59, was finance minister between 1990 and 1996, helping steer Norway out of a banking crisis and deep recession.

This time, he will be tasked with helping the Norwegian economy recover from the global downturn and scale back record-high government spending launched during the crisis.

Oil-rich Norway has dug deeper into its $420 billion offshore wealth fund to stimulate its economy, but Stoltenberg has promised to cut back spending of petro-dollars once recovery takes root.

The centre-left coalition government led by Stoltenberg's Labour won re-election in September for another four-year term after safely guiding the North Sea state through the worst of the global financial meltdown.

Terje Riis Johansen will continue as oil and energy minister, while Defence Minister Anne-Grete Stroem-Erichsen will take on the position as health minister and be replaced by fellow Labour official Grete Faremo.

Previous finance minister Kristin Halvorsen, who is the leader of the small Socialist Left Party in the coalition government, will become education minister.

(Reporting by Aasa Christine Stoltz and Wojciech Moskwa)