he riches of Britain's 1,000 richest people grew even more by almost 15 percent last year to reach US$819 billion, according to The Sunday Times Rich List.

Indian-born steel magnate Lakshmi Mittal was ranked Britain's wealthiest man for the fourth consecutive year, with a fortune worth Ł27.7 billion (US$55 billion), from Ł19.25 billion last year. He is now the sixth richest person in the world.

Mittal is followed by Roman Abramovich, the Russian owner of the Chelsea football club, at Ł11.7 billion (US$23.2 billion), and the Duke of Westminster with Ł7 billion (US$14 billion) in third place.

Indian-born industrialists Ari and Gopi Hinduja were in fourth place with wealth of 6.2 billion pounds ($12.4 billion). Russian steel and mining magnate Alisher Usmanov was ranked fifth with wealth of 5.7 billion pounds ($11.4 billion).

Queen Elizabeth II, who was the country's richest person when the Rich List was first published in 1989, now ranks 264th with a personal wealth of 320 million pounds ($640 million). Her estimated wealth does not include the vast royal art collection, which is now considered the property of the nation.

The list reveals that the native British are being overtaken by foreign billionaires. Only six of the top 20 were born in Britain. About 762 of the richest 1,000 people were self-made millionaires with land and property as the largest single source of their wealth.