Recovery seen holding course in first quarter

That means monetary policy is likely to stay very loose for the foreseeable future and will also feed into the pre-election row over when to start cutting Britain's record budget deficit.

Economists polled by Reuters expect the preliminary estimate of gross domestic product to show quarter-on-quarter growth of 0.4 percent in the first three months of this year, matching the rate seen in the last quarter of 2009 when Britain exited recession.

A batch of data on Thursday appeared to support an outcome in that region, with factory orders improving slightly in March and a slowing in the rate of decline in lending to businesses in February.

"A reasonably solid industry recovery seems to be underway," said Jonathan Loynes at Capital Economics. "But that can't drive a strong pick-up in the overall economy on its own."

Friday's reading is only based on 40 percent of the data that goes into the final, third estimate and so there is a risk that heavy snow falls in January mean this initial snapshot may underplay the strength of recovery, analysts say.

Figures on Thursday also showed retail sales volumes down 1.7 percent during the first three months of the year, meaning there is little in the way of support from consumer spending.

"The retail sales data add to the risk that Friday's GDP data could disappoint on the downside," said Howard Archer, an economist at Global Insight.

GRIST FOR ELECTION

Unless the GDP numbers are weak enough to suggest a return to recession, with just two weeks to go until an election, they could provide some relief for a 13-year-old Labour government that has trailed the Conservatives in opinion polls for over two years.