HONG KONG — China’s effort to open its door to foreign investors has received a big push, as its stocks were accepted into a closely followed global index.

The index provider MSCI announced in New York on Tuesday that it would add domestic Chinese stocks to its influential emerging markets benchmark. As a result, investment funds representing $1.6 trillion will be under heavy but informal pressure to start buying Chinese domestic stocks next year, leading to $17 billion in fresh money being pumped into the stock markets, according to MSCI.

Currently, foreign investors own just under 1.5 percent of Chinese stocks.

The decision is a symbolic victory for China. The Chinese government had lobbied MSCI for years to include in its indexes the so-called A shares traded on the Shanghai and Shenzhen stock markets.

MSCI said it would add 222 domestic stocks from both the Shanghai and Shenzhen exchanges. Most of these stocks are already trading on the Stock Connect, a closed system that allows international investors to buy Chinese domestic stocks in Hong Kong, a semiautonomous Chinese city that, unlike mainland China, has a freely traded currency, the Hong Kong dollar.