A plant control system has a reference value setting unit for variably setting a reference value for an air-fuel ratio to be given to an exhaust system including a catalytic converter, depending on a component based on an adaptive control law of a manipulated variable of the air-fuel ratio generated by a controller according to an adaptive sliding mode control process in order to converge an output of an O2 sensor disposed downstream of the catalytic converter to a target value. The manipulated variable generated by the controller represents the difference between the air-fuel ratio and the reference value, required to converge the output of the O2 sensor to the target value.