The American University in Cairo's MBA programme has been designated as one of the top 200 in the world, according to the QS Global 200 Business Schools report for 2012/2013.

Within the "Emerging Global: Middle East and Africa" category, the AUC's Masters in Business Administration (MBA) programme was ranked second, scoring 32.1 out of 100 with employers in terms of graduate employability.

The University of Cape Town Graduate School of Business came first, with an employer index score of 57.1, and the University of Witwatersrand in South Africa came in third, with an index of 29.1.

Harvard Business School, which tops the Elite Global business schools category for North America, scored a perfect 100.

AUC MBA graduates' average salary, however, stood at $7,000 a year, well below both the University of Cape Town's $82,000 and Witwatersrand's $50,000. There was also a marked gap between the three in the percentage of international students, which stood at 3 per cent for AUC, and 24 per cent and 10 per cent for Cape Town and Witwatersrand, respectively.

Harvard Business School, by comparison, boasts 36 per cent international students and its graduates earn an average of $122,000 a year.

The report does not provide an integrated single ranking of all 200 universities, instead separating them into ranked clusters. AUC figures as part of the Emerging Global business schools, which "have an established reputation for excellence among employers that stretches well beyond their region" as the report reads. In the coming years, these can aspire to become Elite Global business schools, likes Harvard Business School, INSEAD, and London Business School.

Elite Global institutions remain concentrated geographically in the US and Europe, with fewer located in the Asia-Pacific region. No business schools in the Middle East and Africa have earned that classification this year.