June 29 (Bloomberg) -- Mohamed El-Erian, chief executive officer of Pacific Investment Management Co., said the U.S. Federal Reserve is unlikely to raise interest rates.

The Fed will keep rates low “for a long time,” El-Erian said today in a Bloomberg Radio interview from Pimco’s headquarters in Newport Beach, California.

Federal Reserve officials last week voted to keep the benchmark lending rate unchanged in a range of zero to 0.25 percent, while also refraining from increasing its $1.75 trillion bond-purchase program.

El-Erian also serves as a co-chief investment officer of Pimco with its founder, Bill Gross. Pimco, which manages about $756 billion, runs the world’s biggest bond fund.

Heightened government regulation, slower growth and a shrinking role for the U.S. will lead to a “new normal” in the global economy, El-Erian said last month.

El-Erian is the author of “When Markets Collide: Investment Strategies for the Age of the Global Economy,” published last year to explain the shifting relationship between international markets.

To contact the reporters on this story: Sree Vidya Bhaktavatsalam in Boston at sbhaktavatsa@bloomberg.net; Pimm Fox in New York at pfox11@bloomberg.net

Last Updated: June 29, 2009 17:23 EDT