ECB's Noyer - asset purchases need to time to bear fruit: FAZ

FRANKFURT (Reuters) - The European Central Bank's asset purchase programme needs time to bear fruit, namely to boost price growth in the euro zone, Christian Noyer, an outgoing member of the ECB's governing council, told a German newspaper.

"The asset-purchase programme is a long-distance run, not a sprint," Noyer said in an interview with the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung due to be published on Thursday.

"The current programme is functioning well. One cannot expect that it has its full effect after only six months. One has to give it time to bear its full fruit."

(Reporting By Francesco Canepa and Georgina Prodhan; Editing by Balazs Koranyi)