UPDATE 1-Surging China property market poses risks -official

* Hot property mkt poses social, economic risks - official

* Important for banks to control lending pace - official

* Strict capital requirements justifiable - ICBC president

(Adds ICBC comment, background)

By Samuel Shen and Doug Young)

BEIJING, March 3 (Reuters) - China's supervisor of major financial institutions on Wednesday warned against risks in the property market after recent rapid price rises, and stressed the importance of controlling the pace of lending.

Chinese banks lent nearly 10 trillion yuan ($1.5 trillion) last year to support the government's massive economic stimulus, fuelling a surge in real estate and stock prices that triggered fears of asset bubbles in both markets.

"There're definitely risks in the real estate market, as continuously rising property prices have made homes unaffordable to ordinary people, potentially causing social as well as economic problems," Ding Zhongchi, chairman of China's Board of Supervisors for Key State-Owned Financial Institutions said.

"It's important to control the pace of lending, while tightening banks' capital adequacy requirements helps serve that purpose," he told Reuters, speaking on the sidelines of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference at Beijing.

Ding's comments are the latest in a chorus of cautionary words by Chinese officials and financial regulators warning banks to lend responsibly.

The body, which Ding heads, supervises China's biggest financial institutions, including: Industrial & Commercial Bank of China (ICBC) (1398.HK) (601398.SS), China Construction Bank (0939.HK) (601939.SS) and Bank of China (3988.HK) (601988.SS) and directly reports to the State Council, or China's cabinet.

Chinese regulators may ask the country's top five banks to up their capital adequacy ratio (CAR) to 11.5 percent this year, from an 11 percent average at present, part of efforts to strengthen lenders' balance sheets and ward off potential risks, the official Shanghai Securities News reported on Feb. 27. [ID:nTOE61Q012]

Lenders must raise fresh capital or slow lending in order to meet higher requirements on CAR, a key measure of banks' ability to absorb potential losses.

Separately, Yang Kaisheng, president of ICBC, China's largest bank, said the string of recent government concerns may be justified.

"Urging big Chinese banks to keep relatively high capital adequacy levels is fully understandable and justifiable," Yang told Reuters at the same conference.

Yang declined to say whether ICBC would follow rivals including Bank of China and Bank of Communications (601328.SS) (3328.HK) to raise money from capital markets, stressing only that ICBC's capital is adequate at present. ($1=6.83 Yuan) (Editing by Andrew Macdonald)