Nepal said on Monday that in March it will open 103 more mountain peaks in the Himalayas for international climbing.

With the new peaks, a total of 263 peaks will be open for mountaineering, the Nepalese Ministry of Tourism and Civil Aviation said.

According to Nepalese geographers, 1,100 peaks have so far been identified in the Himalaya (meaning 'The abode of the snow'), which Nepal shares with China and India.

Nepal is also home to eight of the world's 14 peaks above 8,000 meters.

Nepal shares Mt. Everest, the world's tallest at 8,850 meters, with China. With India, Nepal shares the third tallest mountain, Kangchenjunga at 8,586 meters.

The new peaks fall within the 5,000-meter to 7,500-meter range.

Mt. Roma (5,407 meters) in west Nepal is the lowest-height peak, while Mt. Talung (7,349 meters) in Kanchenjunga range in the east of the country is the tallest peak. "The new peaks have been opened to attract more climbing expeditions to Nepal," an undersecretary at the ministry, Ganeshraj Karki, said.

The ministry said the provision under which a climbing expedition is required to hire a government official as the liaison officer has been waived for peaks below 6,500 meters.

Nepal is also observing an international mountain year in 2002, and the golden jubilee of the conquest of Mt. Everest one year later.

New Zealander Sir Edmund Hillary and late Sherpa Tenzing Norgay became the first people to climb Mt. Everest on May 29, 1953. Nepal, which had been receiving some 150 climbing expeditions every year, has been getting fewer climbing teams recently.