washington, aug. 1 (xinhua) -- the u.s. federal reserve on wednesday said the nation's economic activity slowed pace in the first half of this year, but it did not announce new monetary moves to bolster the weak economic recovery.

"growth in employment has been slow in recent months, and the unemployment rate remains elevated," said the federal open market committee (fomc), the fed's powerful interest rate setting panel, in a statement after a two-day policy meeting.

business fixed investment has continued to advance. household spending has been rising at a somewhat slower pace than earlier in the year. despite some further signs of improvement, the housing sector remained depressed, said the fomc in the statement.

the fed reaffirmed its policy decision to keep the exceptionally low levels of federal funds rate, currently in the range of 0-0.25 percent, at least through late 2014 to support economic recovery.

some economists believed that a long period of historically-low interest rate since the end of 2008 has underpriced credit and increased risk taking, fueling asset bubbles in the global stock and commodity markets, but could not provide a strong boost to u.s. housing sector and business hiring.

the fomc members also decided to continue through the end of the year its program to extend the average maturity of its holdings of securities as announced in june, according to the statement.

the u.s. central bank announced on sept. 21 last year the extension of average maturity of its 400-billion-dollar holdings of government securities to lower long-term borrowing costs and shore up the economic recovery, an unconventional monetary policy dubbed as "operation twist".

the fed sold 400 billion dollars of short-term treasuries and replaced them with the same amount of longer-term government debt. the plan was poised to wrap up by june without the extension decision. the fed would extend the program in buying 267 billion dollars longer-term bonds by using the proceeds from selling short- term debt through december.