The Forbes business magazine has released their annual billionaires list of the richest people in the world for 2011. Mexico's Carlos Slim Helu has held onto the number one position for the second year running with his staggering $74 billion fortune, an increase of $20.5 billionaire from last year.

Americans continue to dominate the list of billionaires but they are quickly losing ground to emerging countries like China, India, Russia and Brazil. There were a total of 1210 entrants in 2011 with a total net worth of $4.5 trillion. Last year the Forbes billionaire list included 1011 billionaires which means 214 people became billionaires in 2011 with BRIC countries making up 108 of the new entries while the US added only 10.

Microsoft billionaire Bill Gates and value investor Warren Buffett increased their personal fortunes by about $3 billion each over the past year but Slim's fat increase has rocketed the wealthy Mexican telecom mogul ahead of the billionaire pack. Bill Gates, used to being the world's richest man now has a fortune of $56 billion compared to the now established new kid on the block Carlos Slim Helu ($74 billion).

A brief world round up the elite group of money accumulators include 300 European billionaires with a total of $1.3 trillion between them, 413 billionaires with a total net worth of $1.5 trillion calling the United States of America home, 332 Asia-Pacific billionaires with $996 billion, the Americas have 76 billionaires and $419 billion, and the Middle East and Africa have 89 billionaires holding an estimated $251 billion between them.

The youngest billionaire on the Forbes list this year is Dustin Moskovitz at the tender age of just 26. His Facebook fortune of $2.7 billion may look small compared to head Facebook honcho Mark Zuckerberg's $13.5 billion fortune but at 26 years of age, who cares? The oldest entrant on the list is another technology billionaire, the Swiss software mogul Walter Haefner at the ripe old age of 100.