Bank of England Governor Andrew Bailey said on Monday it was not too important whether official data due this week shows the economy shrank in the final quarter of last year and entered a shallow 'technical' recession.

"I would not put too much weight on that," Bailey said in a question and answer session after giving a lecture at Loughborough University in central England.

"If we do get two successive negative quarters ... it will be very shallow. What I would put more weight on is that the indicators we have seen since have shown some signs of upturn."

Economists polled by Reuters estimate the economy shrank 0.1% in the three months to the end of December, after a similar contraction in the three months to the end of September.

(Reporting by David Milliken. Editing by Andrew MacAskill)