CIVIL servants will receive a modest one-off year-end payment of 0.25 month, capped at $750.

They will also receive the 13th month payment, but there will be no Annual Variable Component payment.

The annual salaries of civil servants in 2009 fell by eight per cent to 22 per cent compared to the annual salaries in 2008, with those in senior positions seeing the largest drop.

The one-off payment is in line with the call by the Tripartite Partners (employers, unions and government) to acknowledge employees' support for wage restraint and the work they have put in to help deal with the recession.

The Ministry of Trade and Industry forecasts that Singapore's GDP will shrink by 2 per cent to 2.5 per cent in 2009. While the economy is beginning to show signs of recovery and its performance has turned out better than what we had expected in the middle of the year, growth for the year as a whole is still negative, and the outlook, uncertain.