TEHRAN -- Iranian President Mohammad Khatami Monday called management as the most serious challenge to Iran in the third decade after the 1979 Islamic Revolution, and stressed the need to consider public demands in drawing up an efficient management strategy for the country.

Khatami, speaking at the 5th Shahid Rajaei Festival, highlighted the need for coordinated efforts by all groups to promote the administrative system of the country, and to reinforce the efficiency and creativity in all sections of the government.

He recalled his last year's speech at the same festival where he had vowed to campaign for a capable and responsive administration, as a priority of his programs.

Khatami also recalled the need for reforming Iran's administrative system with a view to encouraging the legal participation of the people in running the affairs of the country through institutionalized state bodies. The president said, "The system of the Iranian government, which he said is not limited only to the administration, has to endeavor playing its role as a capable, harmonized and reformist mechanism in leading the country toward sustainable development."

Khatami underscored the need to remove red tape in Iran's administrative processes, and called for measures to reinforce discipline in the Iranian administrative system. He further said, "The government must be responsive to people's demands, and that it should accept critical comments to further improve their performance."

Elsewhere in his remarks, Khatami paid tribute to martyred Iranian president Mohammad-Ali Rajaei and prime minister Mohammad-Javad Bahonar for their efforts to push forward the cause of the Islamic Revolution, and called on the officials of the country to model themselves on their capability and virtues in managing the affairs of the country, said IRNA.