"We expect to launch an all-out development war giving priority to agriculture. I expect this economic war to bring back economic prosperity denied to the country."
Sri Lanka's eastern province, lined with miles of sandy beaches, was a tourism hotspot before the onset of hostilities in the 1980s.
The port in Trincomalee, regarded as one of the best natural harbours in the world, already has a flour mill, a cement plant and a petroleum storage terminal owned by the Indian Oil Corporation.
Plans are also afoot to start a coal power plant with another Indian state firm and the government has said incentives were available for industrialists to start factories.
"The east was considered the least developed region of our country," the President said in the official