Building Pathways, an organization that creates opportunities for low-income area residents to access and prepare for building trades in the construction industry tours Skanskas 121 Seaport construction site in Boston on May 24, 2017.

Swedish construction firm Skanska posted on Friday an unexpected drop in second-quarter operating profit and said its Construction division had taken new writedowns in the quarter.

Operating profit at the Nordic region's biggest builder fell 11 percent to 1.29 billion crowns ($145.05 million) against a mean forecast in a Reuters poll of analysts for a 5 percent rise.

Anders Danielsson, chief executive of Skanska, told CNBC’s “Squawk Box Europe” Friday that the company’s results over the first six months of the year had provided enough evidence to show it’s strategic plan was “starting to work.”



“We are moving in the right direction (but) we still have issues to work through so we’re not out of the woods yet,” he added.

It said its Construction division, which books the bulk of group sales and which has made large writedowns in the United States and Poland in recent quarters, made additional writedowns in its U.S. operations of around 520 million crowns for cost overruns in a civil project due partly to delays.

When asked specifically about the firm's U.S. operations, Danielsson replied: “The U.S. market is really strong right now (but) while we can see a lot of investment … the need for infrastructure in the U.S. is enormous.”