Sydney, Sept 2 (ZEENEWS.COM) Australia has greatly benefited from India`s emergence as an economic power despite the pressure New Delhi`s demand for energy is placing on rising domestic fuel prices, Prime Minister John Howard said on Thursday.

After having only cricket and membership of the Commonwealth in common, the two countries had come closer economically over the past six years. India with its expanding middle class is an increasingly important trading partner, Howard said, while delivering the Accor-Quantas Australia India address.

But one of the ironies of the stronger economic ties was the pressure India`s economy was putting on fuel prices in Australia, he said.

"High petrol prices caused by high crude oil prices are there...More than anything else because of the rise economically of China and also increasingly of India," he said in a speech in which he outlined his government`s strategies and visions for its relations with India.

"Yet ironically Australia is a greater beneficiary of the rise economically of those two countries than most other developed countries."

India and China, with their affluent middle class, are "remarkably important to Australia" despite the pressure exerted by them on energy resources and the "very high prices we now groan under", he pointed out.

Noting that India was the world`s fourth largest economy and its national income would double every 30 years, Howard said, "the rise of India, of course, is one of the great phenomenons of the early part of the 21st century.

"I am personally very committed to the relationship and I know the Prime Minister of India is," Howard said.

The main areas where Australia`s relations with India would grow are IT, education, economic exchanges and the growing number of Indian migrants settling in the country, he told the event organised by the Australia India Business Council.

"About 11 to 12 per cent of Australia`s migration programme is now made up of citizens from India. It is the third largest source of migration to Australia and the second largest source of overseas students," he said.

"There is a real sense of excitement and a sense of anticipation about the relationships that our two countries have," said Howard who visited India in March with a trade delegation.

India had become the "nation that everybody is watching very attentively" because of the economic reforms it had initiated in the early 1990s, he said.

Howard also lavished praise on Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, who launched the reforms during his tenure as Finance Minister, for converting India from an "over-regulated, inward looking, heavily subsidised and heavily protected" economy into a major power.