Forbes journal publishes list of billionaires

As APA reports, Microsoft's Bill Gates tops the list for the 12th year running, with a net worth of $50bn. Investor Warren Buffett is in the second place as last year with a net worth of $42bn. The next billionaires are Mexican industrialist Carlos Slim ($30bn) and IKEA founder Ingvar Kamprad ($28bn).

Indian Lakshmi Mittal lost his last year place. He was in the third place last year. He takes the fifth place with a net worth of $23.5bn. According to Forbes experts, billionaires' number rose by 15% or 102 people to 793. The combined net worth of the billionaires increased by $400 billion to 2.6 trillion and US billionaires account for just under half the amount.

The youngest billionaire is Lebanese former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri's daughter, 22-year-old Hind Hariri, who inherited $1.4bn from her assassinated father. She takes 562nd place in the list. 371 of the billionaires are the US citizens and there are 55 German, 33 Russian, 14 French citizens in the list.

Asian billionaires are 27 Japanese citizens, 23 Indians and 8 Chinese citizens. Forbes list includes 33 billionaires from Latin America countries- 16 Brazilians and 10 Mexicans.

According to the number of billionaires, Turkey takes the eighth place with 21 billionaires after the USA (371), Germany (55), Russia (33), Japan (27), England (24), India (23) and Canada (22). The top three Turkish billionaires are Rehmi Koch, Omer Sabanchi and Shovkat Sabanchi with a worth 1.7bn each. Head of Dogan Holding Aydin Dogan takes the forth place with a net worth of 1.6bn.

Seven new billionaires were recorded from Russia. Chukotka governor, owner of Chelsea football club Roman Abramovich tops the Russian billionaires' list. He increased his wealth by 4.9% to $18.2bn and went up 10 ranks in the list and takes 11th place.

President of Lukoil Vahid Alekberov takes 37th place ($11bn), Vladimir Lesin 41st place ($10.7bn), Victor Vekselberg 44th place ($10bn), Mikhail Fridman 50th place ($9.7bn).

The only woman among 33 Russian billionaires is Yelena Baturina, who is president of Inteko Company, wife of Moscow mayor Yuri Lujikov. Mrs Baturina takes 335th place with a net worth of $2.3bn.

Our Russian compatriot Vahid Alekberov gathered the most wealth in a year among Russian billionaires. Alekberov owned $4.3bn in 2004 but he increased his wealth by $6.7bn.

Mikhail Khodorkovsky, the former Yukos chief executive, who is in custody now, left world billionaires' list. He topped the list of Russian billionaires for many years with a net worth of $15bn.

New York has the highest number of resident billionaires with 40, Moscow is second with 25, and London comes third with 23.