Yamina Vicente, a recent college graduate in Havana, decided to do something few other Cubans have been allowed or able to do until recently: start her own business using her artistic and entrepreneurial talents.

Vicente, owner of Decorazón, a party planning company, is one of thousands of Cubans who’ve taken advantage of President Raúl Castro’s relaxation of restrictions on self-employment. With the help of her sister and an online course, Vicente plans and decorates salons for quinceañeras (coming-of-age parties for 15-year-old girls), birthdays and other events.

“My business has both economic benefits and lets me work at something I love,” Vicente said.

The young entrepreneur told her story at a Nov. 13 event in Washington co-sponsored by the Center for Democracy in the Americas, USA*Engage and George Washington University. The speakers were optimistic about Cuba’s future.

The seminar, “Cuba and the New Economy,” comes as Cuba-watchers have shifted their focus on economic liberalization in Cuba, and movement on Capitol Hill and the White House regarding Cuba policy has virtually stalled.

According to a report issued Nov. 8 by the Brookings Institution, 450,000 Cubans have registered as cuentapropistas in 201 “permissible” categories of employment including seamstresses, clowns and taxi drivers.

Thousands of others are working without government permission at private enterprises or moonlighting in part time, non-state jobs (see “Experts discuss Cuba’s emerging entrepreneurial class,” CubaNews, November 2013, page 3).

But most employed Cubans still work for the government. The Castro regime’s announcement a few years ago of mass layoffs of public servants has yet to take place.

Nevertheless, Phil Peters, president of the Cuba Research Center, says layoffs at state companies are “almost forcing” the Cuban government toward economic reforms.

After the Soviet bloc fell in the early 1990s, Fidel Castro was forced to allow foreign investment in Cuba for the first time since his 1959 revolution. He moved haltingly to legalize some very limited forms self-employment.

Since then, Cuba has gone back and forth on economic reforms.

Farmers’ markets were allowed, alleviating Cuba’s food shortages. But after the economy improved a bit, Fidel said farmers were getting too rich and banned the markets. About two years later they were authorized again. Even home hair salons were victims of the regime’s back-and-forth on private enterprise when officials suddenly decided salon owners had to pre-pay taxes putting most of them out of business.

More recently, Cuba has closed dozens of homemovie theaters and reaffirmed plans to end the private sale of imported goods. Cuban officials said the moves were aimed at encouraging “order, discipline and obedience” in the growing small-business sector.

But Peters said he’s confident the Cuban government won’t waffle on economic reforms as it’s done in the past.

“In the 1990s, [private enterprise] grew a lot, but it was regarded as a necessary evil. Now it’s an integral part of the reform packages,” he said, adding, however, that “the history of small enterprise is all ups and downs.”

Despite moves towards openness in the economy, Cuba entrepreneurs still face substantial challenges, including one basis for business: a level of certainty and the ability to borrow money from a bank or raise capital in other ways.

Nevertheless, the Obama administration endorses Cuba’s latest changes.

Alex Lee, acting deputy assistant secretary for Western Hemisphere affairs at the State Department, said White House “welcomed these changes as a positive development.”

He said economic reforms in Cuba are in line with Obama’s “people-to-people” policy because they make Cubans less dependent on their government.

“We should give credit where credit is due,” Lee said. “We should welcome these steps. We should not think of Cuba as a land immune to economic pressures.”

Lee also praised Cuba for giving faith-based organizations “greater latitude.”

On the heels of Obama’s criticism of U.S.  Cuba policy during his Nov. 8 visit to Miami, Lee said Washington would consider Cuba’s release of political prisoners a first step towards a transitional government that, under U.S. law, would mark the beginning of the end to the 50-year-old embargo against Cuba.

Lee said the State Department would keep holding bilateral talks with Havana on a series of issues that are of mutual self-interest, including legal migration, oil spill protections, aviation safety and direct mail.

“We will continue to use the litmus test of ‘does it serve the interest of the U.S. government’ when considering an engagement with the Cuban government,” he said.

The new spirit of entrepreneurship in Cuba comes with a price. There are licensing fees and taxes that must be paid. Vicente of Decorazón said she pays business tax monthly, depending on revenues, as well as a 10% local tax on the salary she pays herself. The upside, she says, is that she’ll receive retirement and other state benefits.

Julio Álvarez, owner of Nostalgicar, runs a business that rents classic Chevrolets, Buicks Plymouths and other U.S. automobiles dating from the 1950s. He began his business two years ago with an old car he inherited from his family, and another inherited by his wife.

A mechanic by trade, Álvarez eventually created a syndicate with other owners of classic cars. Now they have 11 vintage autos to rent out to tourists.

Álvarez says he has “all the confidence in the world ” the Cuban government won’t roll back on reforms, adding: “The need for change is our best guarantee.”