CHINA'S booming housing market is a bubble, evidenced by a series of statistics and the actions the central government is taking, an economist said in Shanghai over the weekend.

"A series of indicators - including ratios of housing prices to people's income, to rent, and to construction cost - all point to a bubble in the housing market," said Yao Shujie, head of the School of Contemporary Chinese Studies, University of Nottingham, UK.

The nationwide average ratio of housing price to household income in China was 9.1 in 2009, compared with 4.74 for the UK and 3.09 for the United States, said Yao, citing statistics from a research on China's property market he conducted in 2009.

The research also shows the nationwide ratio rose to 11.15 for the first two months of 2010 and in some major cities, including Beijing and Shanghai, registered over 20.

Last week, E-House China, an information provider, released similar figures - the nationwide average ratio of house price to income was 8.03 in 2009 but were over 14 in Shanghai, Beijing, Hangzhou and Shenzhen.

In addition, the relationship between the house selling price index and the cost of renting index is widening at an accelerated pace, as is the sale price versus cost of construction ratio, according to Yao's research.

Property prices in 70 cities rose in April by an average of 12.8 percent from a year earlier, higher than the annual 11.7 percent increase in March and the fastest pace since the National Bureau of Statistics began to compile monthly figures in July 2005.

"Surging house prices are driven by the supply push as well the demand pull," Yao said. He added strong urbanization, rising income, demographic changes, a dearth of investment channels, and Chinese cultural imperative to buying one's own house has resulted in growing demand.