Red tape is definitely an issue, but freight costs to Nepal are also extremely high. It's a landlocked country with very poor transportation networks. Air courier (eg DHL) to Kathmandu is in the range of $5/kg, and if the final destination is in a village it needs to be hand-carried there. So accessing cheap stuff from abroad is much harder than we might think coming from developed countries. There is no such thing as slapping on a FedEx label right to the final destination.

So the freight cost to send someone a laptop is under $25? That seems reasonable if of course the person is living in Kathmandu...

The government tax on electronics is not good though. I'd have to paypal them extra money to cover it, if paypal is even a thing for them.

Could go the opposite way and welcome everyone and everything in, and have situations like your ports being bought by China, as is happening in African nations.

AFAIK, China has invested considerably in controlling African port infrastructure and operations, not trade policy in the abstract. While owning a port often implies direct control over what goes through it, the converse is not true: a government can still control its own port infrastructure while being completely laissez-faire about what goes through it.

They are building the ports to control the policy, it ain’t altruistic.

China owned port can be shut down on a whim, thus giving its owner political power because closing the port would effect the nations livelihood via exports/imports.

They do in a proxy way control the policy. Often times, it is not just port infrastructure. Also manufacturing, agriculture and mining.

This is the problem in many emerging economies in SE Asia. Just because many people are struggling to arrange their daily meals, Governments get into socialist mode and taxes anything which does not classify as bare necessity. Sadly, it is a vicious loop and these economies are not modernizing enough at a rapid pace despite so much talent waiting for an opportunity.

If the tax money is spent on education, healthcare, and infrastructure such as communication/fiber and water, then it will only take one generation to go from: poor - have to work in order to eat, to poor - but have free time to learn coding without starving, then after 3 generations you might have gone to an information society without going through the industrial age. Unless other countries suck out all the bright minds.

Or you do it like Singapore a bit faster.

I agree with everything you said but your usage of "Just Because" for daily meals doesn't feel right.