Mexican Carlos Slim tops world's rich list

Mexican telecom tycoon Carlos Slim Helu has topped the Forbes magazine list of the world's richest billionaires.

The list, released on Wednesday, valued Slim's fortune at USD 53.5 billion, USD 500 million ahead of long-time list topper Bill Gates, the founder of Microsoft. Legendary investor Warren Buffet was third with USD 47 billion.

Like most of the other billionaires, the top three saw their fortunes rise in 2009, a sign of the improvement of the world economy, said Forbes.

Overall, the 10 richest people had USD 342 billion or $88 billion more than last year.

The number of billionaires also increased to 1,011. That's much higher than the 793 super-rich who made in onto the list last year, but lower than the record number of 1,125 in 2008.

The world's richest woman, according to Forbes, was Wal-Mart heiress Christy Walton, whose USD 22.5-billion fortune put her in twelfth place. Only 89 women made it in to the billionaires club, and most inherited their wealth. Of the 14 self-made female billionaires, seven came from China.

The 24th Forbes list included people from 55 countries, with first entries from Finland and Pakistan.

The US led the list with 403 billionaires. But China came second for the first time with 64 super-rich, followed by Russia with 62 billionaires. Of the world's 97 new billionaires, 62 were from Asia.

Two Indians made it to the top 10 - oil magnate Mukesh Ambani in fourth with USD 29 billion and steel tycoon Lakshmi Mittal in fifth with USD 28.7 billion. The other members of the top 10 were Oracle founder Larry Ellison, (USD 28 billion), fashion tycoon Bernard Arnault (USD 27.5 billion), Brazilian commodities king Eike Batista (USD 27 billion), Spanish clothing magnate Amancio Ortega (USD 25 billion) and German supermarket tycoon Karl Albrecht (USD 23.5 billion).

The city with the greatest billionaire density was New York with 60 super-rich, followed by Moscow (50) and London (32).