The Mexican telecommunications magnate Carlos Slim, was crowned as the world's richest man ahead of Bill Gates and Warren Buffett, according to the annual ranking by Forbes magazine.

It is the first Latin American and the first non-American since 1994 to be placed in the top of the list of Forbes billionaires club.

Slim's fortune, who is the principal shareholder of Telmex, the first fixed telephone company of Mexico, as well as other enterprises, grew and reached 18,500 million current U.S. $ 53,500 million which is valued their heritage.

Gates, Microsoft founder abdicated for the second time since 1995 and was placed in second position (with assets valued at 53,000 million), followed by finance guru Buffett (47,000 million).

The richest man in Europe, however, is Bernard Arnault, seventh overall in the standings with 27,500 million dollars.

In addition to Carlos Slim also highlight among Latin Americans, Brazilians Eike Batista, Jorge Paulo Lemann and Joseph Safra, and the new Chilean president, Sebastian Pinera.

Among the Latin American drug trafficker is also Guzman Loera, who repeated for the second year in the club of the richest people in the world.

"The economy is recovering and this is reflected in the classification since the number of billionaires grew from 2010 to 1011 on the 793 in the above list, the magazine said.

The list this year reflects the strength of the Asian economy on such data as the number of Chinese billionaires, who went from 28 in 2009 to the current 64.