Thomson Reuters reports that Chinese and European lenders have grown their commitments to the Australasia loan market over the last five years, increasing their participation to a combined 28 per cent of total 2017 issuance, up from less than 20 per cent in 2013.Nevertheless, local Australasian lenders continue to dominate the region's loan commitments with over 43 per cent regional 2017 issuance raised via Australasian investors, however, this is down from the proportional commitments which topped 54 per cent of total volume as recently as 2014.On Thomson Reuters' analysis, Japanese lenders continue to play a significant role in the Australasian market with roughly 14 per cent of total 2017 loan volume raised via Japanese bank commitments.In January of this year, China Merchants Bank became the first Chinese bank to lead structuring of a leveraged buyout financing in Australia, highlighting once again the commitment of Chinese lenders to the Australia market. CMB won an exclusive mandate for an A$400 million loan backing the A$1 billion acquisition of Real Pet Food Co by a consortium of largely Chinese investors.Consequently, issuances in Australasia accounted US$11.1 billion via 26 deals by the end of March 2018. This was a notable jump on the previous quarter, but broadly in line with the volume generated in the comparable quarter in 2017, but with around one-third fewer deals, according to a Thomson Reuters report.Among Australia's major banks, ANZ continues to have a relatively greater presence in lending to large corporate Asian clients than its peers. The Thomson Reuters APAC (ex-Japan) mandated loan arrangers league table for the first quarter of 2018 places ANZ Bank in fourth spot, from 22 deals involving more than US$3.4 billion. No other Australian banks figure in the top 20 on this list.The table was headed by Bank of China, which has arranged almost $14 billion from 64 syndicated and club loans; followed by China Citic Bank (US$4.6 billion, five deals) and DBS Bank ($3.8 billion, 27 deals). ANZ leapt onto the APAC loans bookrunner league table, with a hand in 14 deals worth almost US$4.3 billion.