All this points to promising opportunities for industrial and resources companies in Australia to exploit the funding option that the domestic bond market provides.As noted many times in the past, corporate Australia is not enamoured of the domestic market, preferring to go to offshore markets to raise debt, where this option is available, and otherwise relying on the banks for funds. Corporate Australia accounted for only 3.5 per cent of the total bond market issuance seen last year, while raising A$27 billion offshore (15 per cent of total international issuance). The domestic market has always struggled to compete on price, volume and the term to maturity of the debt funding it can provide. This year its competitive position, at least on price, should be significantly improved.The competitive position of the banks in funding the corporate sector has been, and will continue to be, eroded by their own increased funding costs, capital and liquidity requirements. Moreover, corporate treasurers and CFOs are more determined than ever to diversify their sources of debt funding and decrease their reliance on the banks.Nevertheless, many still view the international markets, and the US144a and Reg D markets in particular, as preferable to the domestic market: but this enthusiasm should be tempered by the basis swap, to the extent that the funds raised are required for domestic operations. The basis swap is expected to remain wide and may yet move wider, as the banks continue to rely heavily on the offshore markets and there will be little offsetting influence from kangaroo issuance, as reported below. However, if corporate Australia wants to successfully tap the domestic corporate bond market then a strategic approach is recommended - not a transactional approach. A transactional approach, where a large volume (by Australian standards) of funds is raised in a single issue and the market is not visited again until those funds mature, can work offshore but not here. A more strategic approach may involve a long-term commitment to building and maintaining a market for the issuer's debt. The supranational and agency issuers in the domestic market are the masters of this approach (see the article on kangaroo issuers, below). And such an approach allows the domestic market to be competitive on volume and term to maturity.Issuers could start with a relatively small bond issue, not the full replacement of a A$1 billion bank line, for example, then come back a few months later with another small issue, preferably with a different maturity, and start to build a curve. It may be feasible to build a curve out to ten years, if done progressively. Investor appetite for longer term debt is increasing.Once a curve is established, it can be maintained by steadily replacing maturing bonds with new long-dated issues; and each point along the curve can be increased in size with progressive issuance into each of those maturities with fungible bonds.The opportunity awaits. But the domestic market is an investment grade market. Those corporates without a credit rating will need to continue