NEW YORK, March 10 (Bernama) -- With the global economy climbing out of the worst recession in decades, both the number of billionaires and their combined wealth set fresh records in 2011, China's Xinhua news agency reported.
It was a record-breaking year for the "richest-people club," according to the Forbes Magazines 2011 billionaire list, which was announced in New York on Wednesday.
With 214 new billionaires joining Forbes' 25th annual ranking, the number of "the richest people on the planet" swelled to 1,210, the largest number since the magazine started to compile relevant data.
The total net wealth of the billionaires reached a record US$4.5 trillion, greater than Germany's gross domestic product, and up 25 percent from a year earlier.
Meanwhile, the average net worth of the billionaires added 200 million dollars to US$3.7 billion.
Among the top 20 billionaires on this year's list, all but one saw a rise in wealth from 2010.
Mexico's telecom titan Carlos Slim Helu retained the title of the richest person in the world, with a net worth of US$74 billion.
He was also the biggest gainer on the list, with a stunning US$20.5 billion increase since 2010, widening his lead over Microsoft founder Bill Gates, the second on the list, to US$18 billion.
Master investor Warren Buffett still ranked the third, with a net worth of 50 billion dollars, up 3 billion dollars from 2010.
The top three spots were unchanged from last year, while their total wealth soared from US$123.5 billion to US$180 billion in the past 12 months.
"The global billionaires this year reflect what is happening in the world economy," said Steve Forbes, chairman and editor-in-chief of the Forbes Magazine. "This year the United States is still the number one in billionaires, but the lead is shrinking."
There are 413 billionaires in the United States this year, up 10 from last year's 403, but still 56 fewer than its 2008 peak.
Among all the American super rich, only 6 percent are new to the list, a much lower percentage of newcomers than in countries such as China, Russia and Brazil.
"The trend is very real. Ten years ago, American billionaires made up half of the global billionaires, a year ago, 40 percent, but this year a little more than 33 percent," Forbes said.
"Then you look at the region of Asia-Pacific, last year 234 billionaires, this year 332. So you can see the global economy is recovering, but it just not all spread across the board," he added.
However, Americans, especially younger generations, are exploring in some new arenas for getting rich. With its value more than doubled after a 1.5-billion-dollar injection brokered by Goldman Sachs in January, Facebook helped spawn five of the country's newest billionaires.
Among the "Facebook Six" on the list, the net worth of its founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg soared 238 percent to US$13.5 billion, while his colleague Dustin Moskovitz replaced him as the youngest billionaire, at the age of 26, by only eight days.
Wealth creation is moving at an astonishing speed in Asia-Pacific nations, with the most newcomers to the list, for which Forbes Magazine gave the region a new nickname -- the Billionaire Factory.
The region now has a record of 332 billionaires, the most outside the United States, exceeding Europe for the first time in over a decade, and 105 of them are new.
Three quarters of these newcomers get the bulk of their fortunes from stakes in publicly traded companies, 25 of which have been public only since the start of 2010.
"China really set the tone this year," Luisa Kroll, senior editor of Forbes, told Xinhua. Chinese mainland wowed the world with a total of 115 billionaires on the list this year, nearly doubled 2010's 64.
Li Ka-shing from Hong Kong was still the richest person in China, with US$26 billion, ranking number 11 on the list, the only Chinese in the Top 20.
While Robin Li, the founder of China's biggest searching engine company Baidu, took the crown on the mainland this year thanks to the surge in the company's stock prices, with a net worth of US$9.4 billion dollars, ranking 95th.
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