Sang Zhu said that his team has eight members including six climbers from the Chinese autonomous region. They will be supported by eight Nepalese helpers.

Both Sang Zhu and the expedition's climbing captain Ciren Duoji were members of a Chinese team that climbed to the summit of the world's highest peak, the 8,848-meter Mt. Qomolangma, in 1975.

The expedition will leave Lhasa late March for Nepalese capital Katmandu and arrive in early April at the 5,100-meter-high base camp, at the foot of the mountain which mounts at the Chinese- Nepalese border.

The Chinese expedition will set up five camps in the mountain area for their attempts on the world's fifth highest peak, at a date yet to be decided according to local weather conditions. The team will return to Lhasa in early June.

Mt. Makalu is a highly difficult peak for climbers and is known of frequent avalanches in the area. After failed attempts by British, French, American and New Zealand teams, nine French climbers became the first group to make it to its summit in May 1955, from the northwest face in China.

The Tibetan region's expedition has set a target of scaling all the 14 peaks in the world higher than 8,000 meters and has made it to 11 of them so far.

The expedition made a failed attempt on Mt. Makalu in September 1996. They gave up their efforts after reaching the height of 6, 000 meters, due to bad weather and lack of supplies.

(Xinhua News Agency December 7, 2002)