El Salvadorian President Elias Antonio Saca on Sunday hailed the U.S.- Brazil plan to set up an ethanol plant in El Salvador, despite criticism of the scheme in the region.

The plan was a piece of "excellent news" for El Salvador's national development and economy, the president said on his Sundayradio program in San Salvador.

The plan would consolidate El Salvador's regional status as "the best prepared one to develop biofuels and renewable energy," he said.

U.S. President George W. Bush and his Brazilian counterpart Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva last week announced the joint biofuel plan which will bring Haiti, the Dominican Republic, St. Kitts and Nevis and El Salvador into the biofuel cooperation program.

Under the plan, a plant will be established in El Salvador to produce biofuels from sugarcane.

On Wednesday, Saca said the government was working on a law to regulate the sugarcane harvesting for ethanol production and use.

Although the U.S.-Brazil plan will drastically increase the production of clean fuel, it has drawn harsh criticism from some South American countries as well as environmentalists.

Some critics said that Washington aims to use the plan against the influence of oil-rich Venezuela in the region, while others fear that enlarging plantations of sugarcane, a main ingredient for ethanol, would aggravate the shortage of food staples in the Caribbean countries.